Murphy out, Selby and Ding scrape through

It was an eventful day on Good Friday at the China Open as the four quarter-finals all went right down to the wire. Shaun Murphy bowed out as Kurt Maflin played some simply superb snooker in coming back from 3-1 and 4-3 down to win the first of the days three deciding frames. Robert Milkins led throughout his match with Mark Selby at 1-0, 2-1, 3-2 and 4-3 but the "Master of Brinkmanship" did what he does best to get into the semi-finals and secure that Stephen Maguire will be at the Crucible as the 16th seed.

In the afternoon session Ding Junhui and John Higgins played out a thriller with the home favourite taking out Higgins in yet another deciding frame to make only his second semi-final of the season. Finally, Gary Wilson having already matched his best ever full ranking performance that he set in Cardiff this season, went one better by seeing off Barry Hawkins 5-3.

Quarter-Final Results:

Ding Junhui 5-4 John Higgins
Gary Wilson 5-3 Barry Hawkins
Kurt Maflin 5-4 Shaun Murphy
Mark Selby 5-4 Robert Milkins

Semi-Final Preview:

Ding Junhui Vs Gary Wilson - This is certainly a mismatch between a player in Ding Junhui who is looking to defend his title after a poor year since winning this event last year, but all the same he's really showed some great form and all of his class this week, especially in today's match against John Higgins. Gary Wilson meanwhile is in his maiden full ranking event semi-final, having only reached his maiden quarter-final in full ranking event a month and a half ago. With the players Gary has beaten this week he's showed he is well capable of going on further this week and beating Ding, but to play in a major semi-final against Ding in China will be a whole new experience for him and it will be interesting to see how he deals with that. Ding does look very relaxed this week though and he's playing as well as he has done all season now and if he keeps that up I can't see him slipping up in this contest.

Prediction: Ding to win 6-2

Mark Selby Vs Kurt Maflin - On paper this may look like a match that should be won comfortably by Selby as he is the better player and certainly more consistent than Kurt Maflin. However, I for one thought that Kurt Maflin was absolutely superb after the interval barely missing a ball in the four frames he won from 3-1 down to win 5-4 and Shaun Murphy didn't have a chance to win the match really at any stage. Kurt has played well and scored heavily all week, and when he plays like that he is one of the most dangerous players outside of the top 16, and even though he has had a poor season he seems to have come into form just when he needed to here. It's certainly been a battle at times this week for Mark Selby, having to use all his fight to keep coming back today against Robert Milkins, as he did in round one against Mark Joyce when he was struggling with neck pain. Talk about his neck has died down now but you still feel that Mark could be vulnerable this week if someone comes up against him and really takes his chances and Maflin is a player that has been doing that this week. The only thing that may stand in Kurt's way is that every now and again he throws in an unforced error or just goes for one shot too many and things like that could turn this game into Selby's favour.

Prediction: 6-4 to Selby

These should be two great semi-finals and set-up a really enthralling best-of-19 final on Sunday so I looking forward to coming back and previewing that one tomorrow.