We're halfway through the opening round games at The Masters at the Alexandria Palace and after four games we've already seen a 147 (as predicted in my preview), a deciding frame on the opening afternoon and plenty of twists and turns.
It all started on Sunday afternoon when World Champion Mark Selby took on Shaun Murphy who is targeting the Masters for the final piece of his triple crown puzzle. It started well for Mark as he went 1-0 ahead with a century break, but from there he went off of the boil and things started to go badly wrong. After a couple of scrappy frames went Murphy's way, breaks 92, 55 and 56 followed as Shaun went one frame away from victory at 5-1. It was never going to be easy though as you never get something for nothing against Mark Selby and Shaun knew that as Selby started to come back at him. Mark won the next four frames in a row with the help of contributions of 120, 92 and 55 to force a deciding frame. The decider went scrappy and both players had chances, but a break of 40 from Shaun really broke the back of the frame and eventually he was able to seal victory and get into the quarter-finals with a 6-5 victory.
Sunday evening soon rolled around as Marco Fu took on Stuart Bingham. A break of 57 got Marco going in the opener and Stuart won a scrappy second to make it 1-1. Marco then got into his stride and showed his very best form as breaks of 70 and 103 came either side of a magical Marco Fu maximum 147 break where he never looked out of position and there wasn't a great deal Bingham could do as he found himself 4-1 behind. Breaks of 50, 54 and 56 helped Stuart on his way to clawing a couple of frames back before Fu's third century of the match put him a frame away at 5-3 and he had no trouble getting over the line beating Bingham 6-3 and he'll now play the winner of Ronnie O'Sullivan and Ricky Walden.
Monday was kicked off with Judd Trump and Stephen Maguire and Judd appeared to be in control in the early stages as a 68 clearance in the first was followed by a 41 and 39 in the second as he forged 2-0 ahead and a run of 54 looked like giving him a 3-0 lead before Maguire got a snooker on the blue and eventually cleared to pull a frame back and a run of 96 followed to square the match at 2-2 at the interval. A scrappy fifth went Maguire's way before he made a nice 82 as four frames on the trot made it 4-2. Trump hit back though and runs of 109 and 71 squared the match one more at 4-4. A key ninth frame went the way of Maguire and a reckless shot from Trump early in frame ten gifted Maguire the chance he needed to kill off the match and a run of 64 was enough to secure the match and a 6-4 Stephen Maguire victory setting up a quarter-final with Shaun Murphy.
On Monday evening world number 1 Neil Robertson took on Robert Milkins. Robert took the opener with a well played 94 before Robbo made a nice 60 to square the match at 1-1. The next two frames saw plenty of chances for both and somehow the two frames were shared and they went to the interval at 2-2. A one visit 77 gave Robertson squared the match again at 3-3 after Milkin's 69 in the fifth and Neil looked like taking control of the match from there. Milkins however, had other ideas as he stole the sixth on the black to lead 4-3. From there though Robertson stepped up a gear and he had 3 frames of one visit breaks to come back and win the match 6-4 thanks to breaks of 95, 117 and 76 as Robert was left pretty helpless in the end. The Australian will now take on Hawkins or Carter in the quarter-finals.
Still to come at the Masters we have Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Ricky Walden this afternoon and Barry Hawkins Vs Ali Carter this evening and then Ding Junhui plays Joe Perry and Mark Allen takes on John Higgins on Wednesday to complete the opening round, before the quarter-finals get going on Thursday afternoon.
I'll be back early on Thursday with my preview of those quarter-finals and I'm really excited for what the rest of this week will bring.
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