Renat Denkha secured his spot in the semifinals of the 2026 United States National Snooker Championship, after winning a thrilling final frame respotted black against Daniel Holoyda at the PABSA Academy in Santa Clara, California.

2026 United States National Snooker Championship » Cloud Snooker Live scoring link ➚

The defending champion won the first frame of this quarterfinal, though he soon found himself 2-1 behind to Holoyda and now facing the very real prospect of losing his title defense and his 20-match winning streak in this Championship. Denkha leveled the match by taking frame four, though an early run of 43 in the final frame put Holoyda in the driving seat.

The number one seed clawed his way back into the frame, and with the scores at 55-47 in Holoyda's favor, Denkha potted the brown, blue and pink and left himself a tricky black on its spot as the cue-ball was near to the side cushion. A nervy stroke by Denkha resulted in the miss of the black, and Holoyda pocketed it to tie the frame score at 62-62 for a respotted black.

Holoyda took the first shot at the respotted black, though he left Denkha an opportunity to pot it and he duly took it much to his great relief.

In the semifinals Denkha will face the number two seed Daren Taylor who defeated Kevin Kuei 3-1. The Arizonan has played himself into form in this Championship after being in a precarious position to qualify from his group having lost two matches. Denkha and Taylor have played each other on two previous occasions in this Championship, as Taylor defeated Denkha in the quarterfinals on his way to claiming the title in 2023, though Denkha gained revenge in the following year's final.

The other semifinal will be contested between Andy McCloskey and Hasanain Alsultani, which means all four semifinalists started the Championship as seeded players. Both players are making a second successive appearance in the Championship semifinals, after the number four seed McCloskey had a fantastic 3-0 success over the three-times former champion Sargon Isaac, and number eight seed Alsultani defeated number seven seed and 2022 champion Steven Wong 3-1.

Both semifinals look set to be fascinating high-quality ties, with a gauranteed first-time finalist from whoever who wins from the McCloskey-Alsultani match.

The semifinals will commence at 9am local time with the winners playing in the Championship final scheduled to start at 2pm.

The knockout draw, match schedule and results can all be followed in real time by visiting the 2026 United States National Snooker Championship tournament page on Cloud Snooker, which is the USSA's official tournament running and scoring system platform.