Australian Open 2012 - the quarter-finals

Fu flies in the semis

The quarter-finals of this year's Australian Goldfield Open event ended with no Top 16 player being able to grab a place into the next round (aka. the semis), Shaun Murphy, Stephen Lee and Martin Gould all being defeated by their opponents.

After a 5-4 with Ding Junhui the other day, Peter Ebdon re-made the scoreline by playing Shaun Murphy. The players, both with a world title in their bag, started by sharing frames and actually, the entire match was spent like that.

Breaks like 50, 94 and 111 were enough for "The Magician" to grab four frames, but a series of 111, 79, 55 and a 56 guaranteed Ebbo the chance to play in tomorrow's semi-final.

His opponent is Marco Fu, the Hong Kong snooker star getting an out-of-sorts Stephen Lee hammered by 5-1, after a match whose biggest breaks were a 99 and a 59 one.

Barry Hawkins continued his good run and saw off Matthew Selt, who seems unable to overcome the "quarter-finals curse" and lost the battle of cues by 5-3 (ironically the same scoreline he was defeated with, last year by Shaun Murphy).

Hawkins books semis spot

The Shoot-Out champion took an early 2-0 advance over his green baize opponent, but Selt managed to level the match. Still, Hawkins put his nose back in front and even if Selt fought back with a break of 75, it was going to be the Pink Army member who will win the fight.

Another Pink soldier and recently crowned kind of the 6-Red World Championship from Thailand's Bangkok, Mark Davis has also recorded a victory and with it secured himself a spot in the semi-finals.

His "enemy", Martin Gould although was able to end the first session by drawing level at 2-2 after making just a top break of 52 to overcome Davis' runs of  92 si 54, didn't manage to keep that playing style after the match restarted.

Hence, Mark Davis took his time and potted the right balls in order to win 5-2 and set a snooker encounter with his mate and practicing partner, Barry Hawkins.

Tomorrow, the semi-finals (best of 11) are being played as it follows:

1pm
32) Peter Ebdon v Marco Fu
 
7.30pm
31) Barry Hawkins v Mark Davis
*all hours are local time

TV coverage: