Luke Humphries left this arena stunned and staggered, left it the victim of one of the greatest ambushes ever plotted on this stage, left it a former world champion. For an ailing and ageing Peter Wright, the only conceivable reality in which he could win this match existed in his own mind, and over 40 scintillating minutes he set about carving this vision into magnificent flesh.
In a way, it was a vision dreamed up days in advance, when Humphries was still the king of the Palace and Wright was simply the washed up world No 17, and the possibility of this game barely registered. But Wright knew what he was doing when he aimed a little barb at Humphries, predicting he would lose early in the tournament. “I’m one world title away from almost matching his career and I’m 25 years younger,” Humphries bit back in jest. But on some remote level, a seed had been planted.
