Ben Woollaston, Rory McLeod, Andrew Higginson and Anthony Hamilton. Hands up who predicted those four semi-finalists…no I didn’t either! Click below to read out how they all made it through to the last four…
While three of the players still in the hunt are experienced pros, 22-year-old Ben Woollaston is the exception following victories over Liu Song and most impressively Michael Holt today.
His first match against Liu on paper looks to have been a straightforward match as Ben came through a 5-1 winner, but closer analysis of the frame scores tells a different story as all but one of the frames looked to be tight. His victory over Holt meanwhile started off as quite a cagey affair, before the big breaks came after the interval and runs of 93 and 77 were enough to help him over the line.
Next up for Ben will be Rory McLeod who has bounced back from a poor start to the season this week with an excellent run at Pontin’s. The first of his victories today came against many people’s favourite for the tournament Ricky Walden, while in his second match he ended the resurgence of David Gray, who had previously beaten fan’s favourite Jimmy White in the last 16.
Andrew Higginson meanwhile has also booked his place in the semi-finals with victories over young Chinese talent Anda Zhang and the 2000 Masters champion Matthew Stevens this afternoon. At 3-3 against Zhang he looked to be in a real scrap but from there he won seven of his next eight frames today to move into tomorrow’s last four.
There he will face Anthony Hamilton who lost just one frame today as he brushed aside Joe Jogia and Barry Pinches to progress. No doubt his comfortable victory over Jogia set him up well for his quarter-final match, particularly as Barry had narrowly come through 5-4 against the in-form Robert Milkins.
Still not sure who is going to win this one…