The Masters - semifinals

The Masters are now down to four players.

19-year old Ding Junhui from China beat Stephen Lee in the quarterfinal (6-2) had a good chance to become the first player ever to score two maximum breaks in the same tournament. He came up a little short with only two more reds on the table. He ended with a decent shot on the black but hit the pink so it came close to the cushion. Trying to get a perfect angle on the last red to move the pink he ended up missing the black... Exciting though!

Ronnie O-Sullivan bet Ken Doherty who at the scoreline 5-5 got a bad hit on the white and missed with an open table - and O'Sullivan took care of the opportunity. Overall a very well played match.

Stehphen Maguire won over Neil Robertson in the tournaments probably most shaking quarterfinal. Maguire seemed to have some troble getting over the finish line and Roberson got several chances. Though Robertsons attacking game wasn't working and that gave Maguire the chances he needed to finish the match 6-2.

Shaun Murphy who seem to have found his form were struggling in the match against Stephen Hendry. Both players seemed to have problems controlling the white ball (my guess is somethin in the conditions of the table changed). The match finished 6-3 to Hendry.

Semifinals:

• Stephen Maguire vs Ronnie O'Sullivan
• Stephen Hendry vs Ding Junhui

The Masters

The Masters (The Saga Insurance Masters, formerly the Benson & Hedges Masters) is now running. The Masters is not a ranking event but one of the most prestigiuos titles in snooker with a lot of price money. The tournament is an invitation event, where 19 players are invited. The top 16 in the ranking are automatically invited. One place goes to the winner of a qualifying tournament (Stuart Bingham), and two players are invited by the tournament board (Jimmy White and Ding Junhui). Those three players have to play preliminary matches against seeded player 14, 15 and 16 to advance for the first round in the 16-player single elimination tournament. Read more about the tournament at Wikipedia.

19-year old Ding Junhui became the youngest player ever to score a televised maximum break (147) in the match against Anthony Hamilton (6-3). Junhui yesterday contiuned on his eventual way to victory beating Peter Ebdon (6-3). He now faces Stephen Lee in the quarter final. Sthephen Lee won over current World champion Graeme Dott (6-2). Today we'll se the matches for Quarterfinal 3. The winner of the match Stephen Hendry vs Matthew Stevens will meet the winner of Shaun Murphy vs Steve Davis.

The Quarterfinals:

1. Stephen Maguire vs Neil Robertson


2. Ronnie O'Sullivan vs Ken Doherty


3. Stehpen Hendry/Matthew Stevens vs Shaun Murphy/Steve Davis


4. Ding Junhui vs Stephen Lee

Read more about the tournament here:

• Tournament hompage


• BBC Sport/snooker


• Eurosport