The Masters

In the evening Luca Brecel saw out a 6-3 win over Chris Wakelin. Brecel certainly pulled out some stunning pots but the match also featured quite a few errors.
Brecel faces Kyren Wilson next.

Shaun Murphy stormed into the semi finals with a 6-2 victory over Neil Robertson. Breaks of 90, 67 and 66 helped establish a 4-1 advantage before the Australian compiled a break of 108 to reduce the deficit.
Murphy was not to be denied though and nearly hit a 147 in the final frame only to break down on 120.
He will face the winner of the Selby v Allen clash being played this evening.

What did I say the other day, only not in so many words? All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing, as they say in similarly inappropriate circumstances.

Mark Allen has beaten Mark Selby 6-2 and set up a semi final clash with Shaun Murphy. Allen roared out the blocks with an 81 break before Selby swiftly rattled in a response of 88. The Northern Irishman rattled in a century for 2-1 in a blistering start.
But then the much predicted tactical battle began with a series of protracted frames all of which Selby had chances to win but ultimately lost to go 5-1 down. Despite a break of 80 in the seventh frame it was in vain and Allen saw out the match.

That interminable 4th frame did the damage. Even Selby would have found it hard to dig in from a reverse like that.

If the match hadn't have been sold out, I'd have been watching Judd v Ding at the Ally Pally rather at home. Two very watchable players with a fantastic display of potting and breakbuilding, every frame won with a 50+ frame winning break. Ding, 3 frame winning breaks before the interval to go 3-1 up, missed an easy red with the rest in frame 5 and then it was all Judd. Judd won 5 frames in a row with a high break, including a 125 break in frame 6 which had referee Desislava laughing when Judd was playing his naughty snooker on the colours. Ding failed to score a single point after he missed the red on frame 5. 6-3 to Judd Trump.

Luca's putting up a fight, but it looks like Kyren's on track for the semis.

Kyren Wilson made it through 6-4 in the end after a bit of a nervy last few frames. It had been a relatively free scoring contest until that point.

Wtf is going on?

And now a Murphy 147.