Judd Trump continued his incredible form today in Beijing, as he made a maximum 147 break on the way to a 5-3 win over Tian Pengfei, seeing him into the quarter-finals. The defending champions big moment in frame five after the mid-session interval on the way to a 4-1 lead, and after a mini revival from his Chinese opponent he was able to get over the line in frame eight for victory.
Meanwhile, the last remaining Chinese player in the tournament is the Chinese number 1 himself, Ding Junhui after he dug in against Mark Joyce. Joyce beat Ronnie O'Sullivan 5-4 yesterday, and started strongly in this match taking an early 2-0 lead. Ding pegged him back to all square at 2-2 going into the interval, but Joyce led again at 3-2. In the end though, breaks of 62, 64 and 73 in the final three frames saw Ding turn it around as he proved just too strong in this 5-3 triumph.
There was also trouble for the world number one Mark Selby as he had to fight hard for his quarter-final spot, overcoming Andrew Higginson 5-4. Like Joyce, Higginson led 2-0 with breaks of 61 and 63, only for Selby to pull the match back to 2-2 at the interval, after winning a close fourth frame that seemed key at the time. Selby went ahead for the first time at 3-2, only for Higginson to take the next two frames and move one away from victory at 4-3. Chances came and went for the Widnes man in the last two frames, and the frustration showed as the world champion picked up the pieces.
Mark Williams kept his faint hopes of automatic world championship qualification alive with a comeback win against John Higgins. Williams needs to win the tournament to climb back into the top 16 and he certainly looked down and out at one stage in this match. When the Scot took a tight fifth frame on the black, it extended his lead to 4-1 and he was in full control. From here though, he only scored another 27 points in the match as he squandered another big lead, following an exit in the Players Championship 5-4 to Ding in a match he had led 4-0. Impressive fighting spirit from the Welshman saw him pile on the misery for Higgins with breaks of 60, 66 and 79 in the final three frames to complete the revival.
Williams will now meet Shaun Murphy who continued on his untroubled way through the draw so far, having only dropped four frames in three matches thus far. Today's win came 5-1 against another Welshman in Michael White.
Stephen Maguire's similarly low chances of automatic Crucible qualification are still going as he eased past Daniel Wells 5-1. He is in the same boat as Mark Williams, needing a tournament win to regain his top 16 ranking.
Kyren Wilson completed a 5-2 victory against Stuart Bingham with a match high break of 85, while Hossein Vafei Ayouri is on another strong run, with a 5-3 marathon win against Rory McLeod clinching his place in the last eight.
Quarter-Final Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Judd Trump Vs Hossein Vafei Ayouri
Shaun Murphy Vs Mark Williams
Ding Junhui Vs Kyren Wilson
Mark Selby Vs Stephen Maguire
Trump is playing so well, as his maximum today reiterated, and Hossein will probably not provide the opposition strong enough to beat him tomorrow. Also against the Iranian will be the fact that none of his matches have been on the TV, and his last couple have been lengthy affairs at that, while Trump has been on one of the two main tables for every game and it does make a difference at this level.
Shaun Murphy against Mark Williams could be a close contest. When they played recently in Gibraltar it went to a decider over the best-of-7 frames and I think it could go either way. Williams dug in well today against Higgins which will give him confidence, while Murphy has scored heavily this week so far and completed some easy enough victories. The form and scoring of this week and weeks previous may just favour Murphy on this occasion if he can keep it up.
Ding Junhui has been going really strongly this week, and in a similar vein to Trump and Ayouri, it is worth noting that Ding has had each of his four matches this week (with the hold over match) on the main table and Wilson has been on the outside for his three games. Wilson has been playing well though having defeated Bingham and coming through a quality contest against Xiao Guodong already. He knows what it takes to beat Ding on the big stage in China, having done so at this stage of the 2015 Shanghai Masters when he ran out the eventual winner. His form leading up to Beijing may not have been the best but that has not stopped him, though his biggest challenge here may be keeping up with Ding's heavy scoring if the home favourite is at his strongest.
Finally, there is the small matter of the world champion Mark Selby against the 2008 China Open winner Stephen Maguire. Maguire continued his fine form this week, backing the two centuries against Li Hang in the last 32 up with another against Daniel Wells in the last 16. Mark Selby was a lucky boy today because Higginson could, and probably should, have sent him home. The last couple of times these two have played on the big stage, it was Maguire who took the spoils and if his major strength of heavy scoring carries on, he may add another win to that list. His form in China, as I have repeated all week, has appeared stronger in China over recent times and he is not even playing as well as he did when he flew into the Shanghai Masters semi-finals in September.
These quarter-finals remain over the best-of-9 frames to set-up the line-up for the semi-finals when the tournament will get down to one table over the weekend.
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