It’s Thursday evening as the last of the last 16 matches are completed. Click below to read what is going on in both matches…
Ali Carter 5-0 John Parrott
World finalist Ali Carter equalled his best ranking event performance of the season tonight with a comprehensive whitewash of 1991 world champion John Parrott.
Hard to find much to say about this match as Carter just blitzed poor John from the off really. Breaks of 79 and 111 put him 2-0 up in no time before John finally had a chance following a kick for Carter who looked set for 3-0. John could not take advantage though and Carter soon made amends. The writing was on the wall now and the match was over by 9pm.
Still, it has been a good run for John who has at least clawed back some of the ranking points he missed out on by being absent for the Shanghai Masters. Ali meanwhile faces another veteran BBC pundit now as he meets Steve Davis tomorrow afternoon in the quarter-finals.
Ali Carter 5-0 John Parrott 79(79)-0, 112(111)-0, 57-44, 79(79)-26, 62-0
Ryan Day 5-4 Mark Selby
What a terrific match this was, it swung one way and then the other before Ryan Day stole it on the final black, completing a terrific clearance against the provisional world number three Mark Selby.
Early on it looked like being a cruise for Day as he played well and Mark Selby surprisingly looked lost out there, but crucially in the final frame before the mid-session interval, Ryan wasted a fabulous chance to go 4-0 ahead when he missed a straightforward red. Selby took full advantage and snatched the frame to give himself hope, as well as taking the next frame with a nice break of 63.
Though Ryan got in next and made the score 4-2, he was starting to look edgy, just as he did against Ricky Walden and Mark began to put the pressure on. He won the next two frames to force what would turn out to be a dramatic deciding frame in a match that Ryan should have had won long ago.
Following an extremely unlucky foul from Ryan, knocking the green in as well as a red, it was Selby who was to have the first big chance and he looked certain to take it. Making a break of 47 to give himself a 53 point lead, he was faced with a reasonably tough, but pottable frame ball red and for some reason played it with pace and missed it, giving Ryan another chance. Selby could only sit and shake his head as Day then went onto make a superb clearance to set up a date with Jamie Cope tomorrow evening.
Ryan would have been kicking himself had he lost the match but he showed great nerve to come through in the end. Already up to number four provisionally, he has a real chance to cement a place in the top 6 if he can keep his run going this week.
Selby meanwhile will definitely be kicking himself as having worked so hard to get back into the match only to then throw it away in the manner that he did must be so annoying. Missing the next ranking event in Bahrain due to the Premier League he will now have to wait until December and the UK Championship to put things straight.