Australian Goldfields Open 2015 - Jones To Make Semifinals Debut

Welsh player Jamie Jones has reached the semifinals of a ranking event for the first time, beating countryman Michael White 5-4 in the quarterfinals of the Australian Goldfields Open in Bendigo. John Higgins, Stephen Maguire and Martin Gould have also progressed.

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Neath's Jamie Jones reached the quarterfinals of the World Snooker Championship in 2013 but has done little of note in ranking events since then.

Impressive wins over Mark Davis and Mark Selby earlier in the week gave him confidence, and today at the Australian Open in Bendigo, he recorded one of the biggest wins of his career, beating Welsh no.2 Michael White 5-4 having fought from 4-2 behind.

He will need to knock out another top player if he is to progress to his first ranking event final as he faces the four-time world champion John Higgins in the semifinals.

Higgins who has been playing more consistent snooker this year since winning the Welsh Open in February, recorded a fine 5-3 win over Joe Perry, even with his opponent making two century breaks.

In the bottom half of the draw it was an impressive win for Stephen Maguire, who many expected to beat Judd Trump, but not by the margin he did, 5-1. Want more bonuses? Pop over to this website.

Trump wasn't able to reproduce the fine form he showed against beating friend Jack Lisowski 5-0 in the first round, and former UK Champion Maguire did what was needed to progress to yet another major semifinal.

Maguire will face Pinner's Martin Gould in tomorrow's semifinals. Gould started off the tournament well beating former Australian Open champion Marco Fu 5-4, before pulling off another great win today against Matthew Selt 5-1 with a top break of 122.

Gould often appears on many fan's lists of who should of won a ranking event, but hasn't yet. The Australian Goldfields Open was the first ranking event title for both Stuart Bingham and Barry Hawkins, is it finally Gould's time to lift a major trophy?

For all results and scores from the Australian Open 2015, click here.