Selby, O'Sullivan, Trump and Robertson lead into European Masters semi-finals

Four of the games leading stars have made it through to the semi-finals of the European Masters, after some comfortable matches on quarter-finals day in Romania.

First up was another chapter in the battles between Judd Trump and John Higgins, but on this occasion there was no close contest, instead it was Trump who dominated and ran out a comfortable winner. It was not necessarily a match of big breaks galore from Trump but he did win a couple of scrappy frames and made a 74 break in the second, and he clinched a thumping 4-0 win with his highest break in the match, a 105. 

Then it was the turn of World Champion Mark Selby to turn on the style in his match with Alfie Burden, who was the lowest ranked player coming into the last eight. Burden was full of praise for Selby on social media after the match. Overall it was a victory that certainly would have had the 'Jester from Leicester' smiling as he opened up with a contribution of 84, and then followed this with century breaks of 136 and 102 to take frames three and four in another 4-0 victory. 

Rocket Ronnie O'Sullivan soon raced to victory against Mark Davis in the evening session, despite Davis being the first player on the day to claim a frame in defeat after the earlier whitewashes. O'Sullivan opened up with a 54, before winning a tight second frame in which both players had chances. Davis came onto the board in the third frame with a magnificent 124 century break to keep himself in proceedings. O'Sullivan took his opportunity in the fourth to go one away, and he soon sprinted to the finishing line aided by his first century of the season, and the highest break of the match, a 129, putting him in the semi-finals with a 4-1 win. 

The closest and equally the most drawn out match of the day was the last quarter-final between Neil Robertson and Anthony McGill. Things started well for the Australian in this one, as a break of 61 supported him in winning the first frame. The second frame was when the match started to get a little bogged down, a lengthy encounter eventually seeing McGill level the scores. It looked for a while in the third that McGill would then edge in front, but a very nice colour clearance from Robertson after the Scotsman had missed his chance turned the tables. That and a supposed "soft warning" from referee Marcel Eckardt to McGill about the speed of his some of his play did not effect him as he soon squared the match again at 2-2, assisted by a break of 56. Another tight frame in the fifth went the way of Robertson as he went one away from victory at 3-2 and after some missed chances from his opponent in the sixth he got over the line with a 4-2 victory which will now see him play Ronnie O'Sullivan 

Semi-Final Schedule: 

11am UK Time (1pm in Romania): Mark Selby Vs Judd Trump

5pm UK Time (7pm in Romania): Ronnie O'Sullivan 

The semi-final matches are played over the best-of-11 and with the best of the bunch through to the last four these could well be two cracking contests that are both incredibly tough matches to call.

Selby has hardly dropped a frame this week having played an extra match at the venue, while Trump did have one scare against Ben Woollaston otherwise it has been plain sailing for him as well. The two most recent meetings between Selby and Trump saw Selby beat Trump 5-4 in the quarter-finals of the 2015 German Masters, in a match where Trump made a 147 break, while in the 2014 Champion of Champions Trump thumped Selby 6-1. 

Ronnie O'Sullivan did have a tough contest with Mark Allen and he had to play at the top of his game to through there and in his other matches he has done the job required, brushing tricky opposition like David Gilbert and Mark Davis aside in double quick time. Neil Robertson will be no easy match for him over the best-of-11 frames and the pair are pretty even in the head to head. The most recent meeting saw O'Sullivan blow Robertson away in the latter stages of this years Welsh Open final, while Robertson won 6-1 in the 2015 Masters semi-finals prior to that.