Day three completed in Berlin and with it the last four line-up for the German Masters has been set as 12 became 4. Click below for a round-up of the day’s action…
The first man through to the last four this evening was Ronnie O’Sullivan, though not without a scare as he came back from 3-1 down at the mid-session interval to defeat Matthew Stevens 5-3.
Having taken the opening frame Ronnie was to drop the next three, but breaks of 62, 56 and 54 from O’Sullivan were enough to see him through to the semi-finals of a ranking event for the first time since the 2010 World Open in Glasgow and importantly boost his chances of remaining among the top 16 ranked players at the next seedings revision.
Next up for the three-time world champion will be a clash with Stephen Lee who with a 5-3 win against defending champion Mark Williams is through to his first full-ranking event semi-final since the 2006 Northern Ireland Trophy, an incredible statistic for a player of his calibre. 14th on the latest projected seedings list, Lee is well-placed to secure an automatic place at the Crucible and will be hoping to make certain with a win against O’Sullivan tomorrow.
In the other half of the draw, Shaun Murphy knocked out world number one and 2011 finalist Mark Selby with a 5-3 victory this evening, Selby having already come through a tough match with Scotland’s Graeme Dott earlier in the day. From 4-1 down it appeared as though Mark might at one stage force a decider as he potted yellow and green in frame eight, but a miss on the brown was eventually to let Murphy in to move into the semi-finals.
There he will meet old rival Stephen Maguire after the Scot recovered from 4-2 down to defeat Judd Trump 5-4, following a terrific clearance of 57 under the circumstances in the decider. Whilst Maguire has consistently remained ranked among the top eight players in the world during the past few seasons, at times he has struggled for results against his fellow top players but of late with wins against the likes of John Higgins, Mark Selby and Judd Trump, looks to be as dangerous as he has for a while.
The action resumes at 2pm local time with the first semi-final between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Stephen Lee.