Welsh Open 2012 (Day 4) - O'Sullivan, Allen and Maguire land in quarter-finals

Rocket lands in QFs

The amazing snooker gang formed by Englishman Ronnie O'Sullivan, Northern Ireland's Mark Allen and Scotland's Stephen Maguire landed safely in the quarter-finals of this year's Welsh Open tournament. 

Also playing with them in the next round is "Bulldog" Stephen Lee who crushed Tom Ford's Welsh dream with a 4-2 scoreline.

Ronnie O'Sullivan continued his good run by hammering the Welshman Mark Williams 4-1. Although the battle of cues started with the Englishman clearing the table with a 125 break and the Welshman responding with a great 133 clearance, that was going to be Williams' first and only frame won.

O'Sullivan took another frame under his belt after clearing the table with a 96 break this time, and when Williams missed a red with the rest as he was reaching a 41 break he was careful enough to extend his lead at 3-1 with a 45 break.

Another defeat suffered by Mark Williams

The last frame saw Williams missing three huge opportunities to postpone the final result, O'Sullivan closing the deal with a 56.
  
After crashing Ken Doherty the other day, Mark Allen performed for another 4-0 scoreline, this time in front of Stephen Hendry. Breaks of 81, 36, 43 and 68 put an end to the seven-time world champion dream of reaching the quarter-finals. 

The crucial point of this match was during the second frame when Allen was in need of a snooker, Hendry committing a huge mistake, thus the proud of Northern Ireland winning on the black.

Maguire on-fire

Some fireworks were detected at the table where Stephen Maguire and the last Welshman standing in the competition, Matthew Stevens were playing.

Although Maguire flied to 2-0 by using two runs of 47, Stevens pulled back a frame with an 84 to prove he's still there fighting. However, Maguire reinstalled the two-frames-difference with a great 111 break, this turning the scoreline into 3-1.

Stevens made another attempt to get back in the match, this time with a bit of help from a 66 break and when the 6^th frame was underway, the Welshman had a great chance to draw level and force the match to end in a decider. Sadly he missed one very nasty red, Maguire coming to clear with a 34 and win the match on the black, 4-2.

The nasty red that Steves missed

"Bulldog" Stephen Lee proved to be in quite a fighting mood, using wisely “munitions” of 129, 56, 43 and 27 to hammer his opponent, the PTC 11 winner, Tom Ford 4-1 and earn a place in the quarter-finals where China's Ding Junhui is waiting.

The forth day is far from being over through, from 7pm (UK time) two more matches having to be played: Judd Trump v. Stuart Bingham and Mark Selby v. Martin Gould.