Tour Championship snooker 2024: Ali Carter survives to reach quarter-finals, Mark Williams beats Tom Ford

Ali Carter survived a huge scare to beat Barry Hawkins 10-8 and move into the quarter-finals of the Tour Championship in Manchester.

‘The Captain’ led 7-1 after the opening session but lost four of the first five frames as Hawkins threatened to pull off an unlikely comeback in the best-of-19 clash.

But it wasn’t to be in the end as Carter eventually got over the line to set up a mouth-watering last-eight clash with Ronnie O’Sullivan, which gets underway on Wednesday at 13:00 BST.

Hawkins had a mountain to climb to get back into the contest against an in-form Carter but immediately set about eating into his deficit.

He won a scrappy opener before breaks of 56, 80 and 118 saw him clinch four of the first five frames of the session to get within three at 8-5 down.

A frustrated Carter let a chance slip in the next but was given a reprieve when Hawkins broke down on 60 after hanging a black in the jaws and that crucially allowed ‘The Captain’ in to steal a vital frame to make it 9-5.

Hawkins continued to fight and won the next three frames, the last on a respotted black, to set up a tense finale.

Carter wouldn’t be denied, though. A fluked red got him going in the 18th frame and he held himself together well to seal a dramatic victory, with a resumption of his rivalry with O’Sullivan to come next.

On the other table, Mark Williams prevailed in a final-frame decider against Tom Ford in an epic encounter that featured five centuries.

The Welshman led 8-4 and 9-7 but Ford rallied to take the contest all the way before Williams produced an incredible break to advance to the quarter-finals, where he will meet Judd Trump.

Leading 5-3 at the resumption, Williams quickly extended his advantage with a break of 112 but Ford showed he was up for the fight, taking the next to pull back within two once again.

Williams opened up a four-frame lead going into the mid-session interval, only for Ford to come roaring back when play resumed.

Breaks of 138 and 133 – to go with his earlier efforts of 114 and 136 in the first session – saw the Englishman reel off three frames in a row to close within one but Williams crucially won on a respotted black to make it 9-7.

Ford was far from finished, though. Recovering from that setback, breaks of 90 and 63 made it 9-9 and set up a one-frame shoot-out.

The first chance is often crucial in these circumstances and it fell the way of Ford, but the Englishman took his eye off a pot with the winning line in sight, allowing Williams to return and compose a scarcely believable break to seal his progress.