2015 German Masters Day 3 - Magician Murphy makes Rocket disappear

Focused Murphy brings Rocket down

The quarter-finals of this year's German Masters are history, but those who survived the intense battle of cues are in to write some more thrilling pages.

Shaun Murphy, Mark Selby, Liang Wenbo and Stephen Maguire are ready to cross their cues into the semis and bring the good people of Berlin and the entire snooker-loopy planet even more high-class snooker. And that after all the quarter-final matches ended on deciders. How about that for a Friday evening/night?

First stop, we have a match that the audience was craving for: Ronnie O'Sullivan v. Shaun Murphy. The lads didn't disappoint the crowd and went on to perform some really thrilling snooker.

"The Magician" was the first to break the ice, a 77 break bringing him the opener, while a 59 was setting a very comfortable advantage of 2-0.

Ronnie exits the tournament

But "The Rocket” fought back and he did it in his own special way, through breaks of 74 and 134 (that one was actually a total clearance) to set a more balanced scoreline as the interval was kicking off.

At returning into the arena, Rocket Ronnie continued his cruise with runs of 73, 36 and 27 to go 4-2 up and just one away from victory. 

Now, normally you would think that that's it, but not in this particular case. Shaun had a lot to fight for and a solid break of 67 was proving he was going to go for it.

A scrappy frame was all Murphy needed to force the decider, a decider that O'Sullivan and his 51 break could have easily won if the Rocket wouldn't have missed a red (which was also frame and match ball) thus granting Murphy the chance to return to the table.

A very happy chap

"The Magician" took the given chance and cleared the table to win the frame and match on the black. Pure drama!

At the near table, another two grand masters of the green baize were disputing their place in the semi-finals, Mark Selby and Judd Trump deciding to go all the way to the last frame too.

The mid-session interval found Selby in control of the match, the Leicester-man leading Trump by 3-1, but that changed dramatically when the players re-started their match and Judd hit a splendid 147 (the first in the history of the German Masters - excepting Mike Dunn's one from the qualifying rounds in 2011- the second of his career as a professional player and the 113^th in snooker's history) followed by runs of 42 and 39 to draw level at 3-3.

Too bad it wasn't a televised match, but hopefully it was miraculously recorded so we'll have the chance to see it soon on the internet. Interestingly enough though, Trump's first maximum break was also made in a match played against Selby, which he also lost, back in 2013 during the Antwerp Open.

Judd records German Masters' first 147

It was really no surprise to see this match ending on a decider, decider that Selby won with a top break of 60.

Another thrilling match was the one featuring the names of Liang Wenbo and Ryan Day, both players having a wonderful run throughout the tournament. 

And as expected they fought hard for every frame until the very last one which was bagged by China's Wenbo with a break of 57.

The ones to turn off the light were Neil Robertson and Stephen Maguire, the players going hand-in-hand until the deciding frame which carried the name of Scotland's Maguire as the winner. Stephen performed quite an extraordinary steal there at the end, after needing two snookers. What a way to end the day!

Saturday's order of playing:

12am
Liang Wenbo v. Shaun Murphy

7pm
Stephen Maguire v. Mark Selby

*all hours are UK time