The semi-final line up at The Dafabet Masters will be completed on Friday when the final two quarter finals are played out at Alexandra Palace in London.
Ronnie O’Sullivan and Barry Hawkins booked their places in the last four with emphatic wins on Thursday and four more players will be looking to join them on Friday.
The afternoon match on Friday has all the hallmarks of being a cracking match as Judd Trump takes on Neil Robertson for the right to face Hawkins on Saturday.
These two will know each other well. They are tied to the same management stable and have met on umpteen occasions. Trump generally has the better of their longer format matches which will give him plenty of confidence as will his performance in the first round.
There he got the better of Stephen Maguire in a fairly high quality match and he’ll have been pleased with how he saw that match out given that he hadn’t won in this tournament for a while. He’ll need to eek out an extra bit of quality here but he has that in him.
Neil Robertson cruised into this quarter final. Luckily for him his first round opponent Marco Fu turned up heavily influenced by illness and just couldn’t perform to anything close to the necessary standard.
In fairness to Robertson he didn’t feel sorry for Fu. He was ruthless in destroying him 6-0 but he will need to sharpen up his game here because Trump will jump all over any chances that he might get.
I’m expecting a really high quality clash here and one which is fairly close throughout. Generally when these two meet over the longer distances they play out close matches and with both looking in fairly good touch in the first round and both capable of getting in and clearing up I expect a match with plenty of ebb and flow which contains at least 10 frames.
The last match of this round sees the world champion Stuart Bingham in his first Masters quarter final when he takes on the former Masters and world champion John Higgins.
I thought Higgins was as good if not better than anyone in the first round and if he repeats that performance here he will surely have too much for the Englishman but we saw Barry Hawkins get a new lease of life with a first win in this tournament under his belt on Thursday and Bingham will hope to follow that example.
I don’t think Bingham’s problems are as much his record here. I think he is struggling with the mantle of being the world champion and that is unlikely to change here unless he dramatically improves. We know he can improve and that he has the game to improve but until he does I stay pessimistic about him.
The last two meetings between these two have both gone the distance but Bingham was on song then and Higgins wasn’t but the roles have reversed now so I can’t see beyond the Scot here and I’ll take him to come through a little bit easier than he has in their last two meetings.
Higgins has hit six centuries in his last two Masters matches and he could have had a couple more than the three he did hit against Liang Wenbo in the first round so the 5/4 that he hits one here is all wrong. He should be odds on to make a ton in current form. He looks like clearing the table every time he gets the chance so I’m happy to back Higgins to nail a ton here.
Back J.Trump vs N.Robertson – Over 9.5 frames for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Paddy Power
Back J.Higgins (-1.5 frames) to beat S.Bingham for a 4/10 stake at 2.05 with William Hill
Back J.Higgins Over 0.5 centuries for a 3/10 stake at 2.25 with Bet365
