Michael Holt today scored his third win of 2016 against Ronnie O'Sullivan with a 6-4 victory in Wednesday's Last 16 at the International Championship. Having previously beaten O'Sullivan in March's World Grand Prix and in the Shanghai Masters just over a month ago, Holt took an early 3-1 lead at the mid-session interval and was never pegged back to level terms by his opponent. Despite losing a narrow fifth frame, Holt bounced back to take a tight frame on his own and restore his two frame advantage. 96 from Ronnie closed the gap once more, and after Holt won the eighth he closed the gap again with a 76 to make it 4-5. Holt held himself together in the next though to win the match with a run of 70.
Holt will now play Stuart Bingham who met Ali Carter for the fourth time in 2016. After losing to Carter at the World Championships and in Carter's run to winning the World Open, Bingham completed a comfortable victory in the Shanghai Masters and added to that today with a 6-1 thrashing of the Captain. Bingham's high breaks in the match were 84 and 82.
In the battle of the former International Champions, Ding Junhui came out on top in a deciding frame against Ricky Walden. Ding surged into a 5-2 lead thanks to runs of 71, 88, 93 and 98. Walden kept on going though and started to produce some real quality himself with a break of 130 in the eight and after winning a tight ninth frame, another century in the tenth forced the decider. It came down to the colours in the final frame but in the end the home favourite was just too strong, eventually closing out the match.
Ding faces the defending champion John Higgins next after Higgins beat another Chinese player in Zhou Yuelong 6-2. The only highlight for Zhou was a break of 102 in the sixth frame, but he was already 4-1 down at this stage.
World Champion Mark Selby used all of his "Master of brinkmanship" qualities against recent English Open winner Liang Wenbo. After the opening four frames were shared, including a century from Liang. Selby did move ahead at 4-2 before Liang won three on the bounce to move one away from victory at 5-4. Despite chances from the Chinese in both of the final two frames, Selby took them both helped by a break of 69 in the decider.
Selby's quarter-final opponent is Joe Perry after Perry completed his second 6-2 victory over Neil Robertson this season, after their World Open semi-final. It was not the same level of incredibly scoring from Perry on this occasion, but highs of 80, 73 and 67 were enough to put him into the last eight.
Judd Trump kept his brilliant form going with a 6-3 win over James Wattana who was in the Last 16 of a ranking event for the first time in 10 years. After making two centuries in each of his two earlier wins, today he had breaks of 137, 133 as well as runs of 83 and 77. Wattana put up a valiant effort making breaks of 94 and 75 and pushing Trump as much as any other player so far.
Shaun Murphy thrashed Sam Baird 6-1 for his most comfortable win so far. Despite Baird making a century in the opening frame, he could not reach the same heights thereafter and Murphy made breaks of 64, 86 and a high of 101 to get into the quarter-finals and set up a meeting with Judd Trump.
Quarter-Final Schedule:
7.30am UK Time:
John Higgins Vs Ding Junhui
Judd Trump Vs Shaun Murphy
12.30pm UK Time:
Stuart Bingham Vs Michael Holt
Mark Selby Vs Joe Perry
It is hard to pick the winners of any of those four matches with any certainty with eight such high quality players left in the competition. However, all of the last four meetings between Ding Junhui and John Higgins in ranking competition have seen Ding come out on top and it will be interesting to see if that run continues. Meanwhile Trump and Murphy will meet for the first time since November 2014 in a European tour semi-final when Murphy came from 3-0 down to win 4-3. Michael Holt will be hoping to do what he has not been able to after beating O'Sullivan on the two previous occasions in 2016 by winning his next match. As for Perry and Selby both have already had to come through deciders, Perry beating Higginson from 5-2 behind in the Last 64 and Selby coming from 5-4 down against Liang, and this could also be a very close match.
The quarter-finals will be played over the best-of-11 frames once more to set up two semi-finals that will be played on individual days over the best-of-17 frames. Presumably as the top half of the draw play earlier on Thursday, that semi-final will be on Friday but this is yet to be confirmed.
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