Perry, Bingham, Trump and Williams into Thailand semi's

Joe Perry, Stuart Bingham, Judd Trump and Mark Williams are the four players into the semi-finals of the Players Championship finals in Thailand after wins in today's quarters. Joe Perry started the day off by winning his match with Michael Holt despite losing the opening frame and following some bad luck from Michael knocking a red in from the perfect split in frame three. He'll now play Stuart Bingham who cruised to his second victory in a week against Mark Davis including a century, which have been incredibly rare this week. Judd Trump also gave a repeat dose of the World Grand Prix to Martin Gould by sealing a tough victory in that one. Mark Williams meanwhile has gotten into his fourth major ranking event semi-final of the season and third of the last month after sealing yet another victory from 3-1 down, this time against Matt Selt who had enough chances of his own to seal the win.

Quarter-Final Results:

Judd Trump 4-2 Martin Gould
Mark Williams 4-3 Matt Selt
Joe Perry 4-1 Michael Holt
Stuart Bingham 4-1 Mark Davis

What that means after todays play is that having started the quarter-finals with five players out of the eight having never won a full major ranking event, of that group, only Joe Perry remains but he'll be confident that he can win the two best-of-7 frames matches that he would need to tomorrow in order to take the £100,000 top prize, as will the other three guys left in with him.

Semi-final Preview:

Judd Trump Vs Mark Williams - This is now the fourth time that Mark Williams has come up against Judd Trump in recent tournaments with Mark beating Judd 4-1 at the Welsh Open and 4-3 at the Indian Open before losing last weeks match 4-3 on the black at the World Grand Prix. Both of these guys have been playing very well and have been unlucky to keep running into each other at every tournament. Mark seems as relaxed as ever this week and that will be helped by gaining more money on the players around him as he has all but secured his Crucible top 16 seeding now in my opinion although I guess plenty can still happen next week in Beijing. Mark has reached three full ranking event semi-finals before this one and he lost all three of those in very tight matches, but with Williams continuing to play well and not being fazed one bit by going a couple of frames down in these best-of-7's he never seems to be beaten until that last ball has gone down and that makes him so difficult to overcome. Judd has had to scrap through a couple of games this week and he may still be a little caught up by winning the World Grand Prix last week, as he doesn't appear to be at his best, which you feel he really needs to be if he is to beat a Mark Williams full of confidence and belief.

Stuart Bingham Vs Joe Perry - This semi-final sees two of the most successful players in the very short history of the Asian Tour events come up against each other here as Bingham takes on Perry. Both guys have won Asian Tour events this season and Bingham has won another couple in the past with Perry having one more to his name with this seasons. Stuart has also got a major ranking title in Asia to his name after winning September's Shanghai Masters, while Joe Perry came agonisingly close in June's Wuxi Classic. Equally, the two players are in good form with Joe reaching the Indian Open quarter-finals and the quarters in Gdynia too, while Bingham reached the Grand Prix semi-finals whilst also winning the Championship League in early February. The one difference here could be the determination of Joe Perry to win his maiden ranking event title as he knows going into this semi-final that with just two best-of-7 frame matches left if he is to win the title, this could be one of he best chances he'll have left to do so. Even though Joe has been in trouble once or twice this week, I expect him to push on now as he's certainly playing well enough and with a very nice rhythm to his play that comes to the fore when he's playing well.

With the final to come tomorrow and very little time between the semi's and that final, I doubt i'll be able to get a blog out in very good time so I'm going to pick my tournament winner now as well from my predicted finalists of Joe Perry and Mark Williams (hoping now that i'll be right!) and both players will be determined to get that ranking title and big money prize under their belts. Both will have the confidence to do it, but Mark Williams has been on a consistent run for a while now and the only thing that's been missing is a major title so I believe this weekend will be his.

The next stop for the players will be next weeks China Open and i'll be back to preview that one ahead of the start on Monday morning.