Day 6 Masters Snooker Highlights

Welcome to highlights from the Betfair Masters at Alexandra Palace.

We will bring you the best of the actions from the match between Mark

Williams and Mark Selby as they battle for the one remaining spot

in the semi-finals. We start with a recap of what happened in the match

between Judd Trump and Graeme Dott. As the big freeze set in around

Ally Pally this afternoon, everyone was expecting the juggernaut to put

the burners on with some thrilling snooker. Everyone, that was, except

the granite like Graeme Dott. The immovable object put the big chill

on the irresistible force in the first two frames. The crowd-

pleasing needed to sort out and there were glimpses that the

snooker might turn naughty as he pulled one back. Graeme Dott went

into the interval 3-1 up. Judd Trump needed to get the snowball

rolling, but he continued to struggle. Graham went from strength

to strength as he dominated the world number two, and he underlined

he is now a serious contender for the title. It was nice to finish

the match that way because I never showed that much throughout the

match. It was a really bad day, disappointing because it is such a

big tournament, but there are still the World Championships to come, so

I still have a decent shot so far. Graeme Dott is through to his first

ever final and he will play the winner of the match between Mark

Selby and Mark Williams, two former champions who have found their best

when their backs are against the Will that cue ball go in? Well,

would you believe that? Mark Williams still with a lot to think

about. He trails 4-1. That was a fantastic pot. Beautifully played

and perfect on the black. And the two times champion books his place

in the quarter-final, amazing. excellent pot. That is another good

pot. He is having a ball at the moment. Stuart Bingham takes the

frame and it goes into a 5-1 lead. He has just gone off the boil and

the last couple of frames, Stewart. That was an even better blue.

excellent shot. We are going into a decider. He said, I told you I

could do it. He was 5-1 down and he has come back and won five frames

in a row to get himself into the quarter-final. Absolutely fantastic.

They have both been Masters champion twice, but Mark Selby has

had much more recent success. It was the Welshman who won a tactical

first frame. The second frame This is going to be difficult to

I am not sure if he can get past the pink to come off a couple of

questions. That is a bit of an acute angle. He might have to go to

the other side of the pink to swing it around a couple of cushions.

Whatever side, he has got to get a lot of right hand side on it. He

has gone up the one I mentioned and he was very close to it, wasn't he?

That is not going to do his confidence any good at all. He is

such a laid-back character, Mark Williams, but a miss like that is

You cannot put that down to pressure for someone like Mark

Williams. That was just a lapse in concentration. But you have to take

full advantage when your opponent is making mistakes like that. OK,

it is the best of 11, but worrying times for the Welshman and his

Yes, he is not going to bother about the black or the pink, Mark

Selby. Mark Williams stays in his chair and ponders that easy missed

red into the middle, but it is Mark Selby who takes the frame and goes

into a 2-1 lead. The pattern of tactical play continued into the

next frame, although this time it It is early stages, but it is such

a huge frame for Mark Williams, this. A few chances already in this

frame, as indeed in the first couple of frames. Should he go on

to lose this frame as well, it would be a long way back for him.

This is a dead straight yellow. He is contemplating trying to pot it

and may be screwing back into baulk, but he does not like it. He is

thinking about how difficult is the safety shot? If it is more

difficult than the pot, why not Well, that is unbelievable, isn't

it? He has already been fortunate a couple of times in this frame. He

is not on the green, but he is on Now Mark Williams is going to need

a bit of fortune when coming off the cushion and hitting the green.

He has got to make sure he does not hit that green up over the corner

Eight dead straight pot with very little to do to get nicely on to

the brown, but it is a tough shot. It is the type of shot you have to

This will be another body blow for Mark Williams. That was superb

cueing from Mark Selby. He has still got to get a good blue and

He could easily go 3-0 up and Mark Williams could easily have led 3-0.

Seems a bit reluctant to have to use the rest, but he is going to

That is not bad at all. Dead straight on the pink would have

Not a problem. So far all the world, it looked as though Mark Williams

was going to get his first frame on the board, but with a little bit of

fortune to get him on his way, it is Mark Selby who goes on to take

the frame and he now leads. Each of the opening three frames

could have gone either way, yet it is Mark Selby who leads 3-0 and

Mark Williams has to respond and I am just wondering if one of these

reds pots into the right middle It is more difficult trying to pot

it with a stun from that position. That was a good effort, but it was

worth taking it on, even though it was more difficult, stunning it. He

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kept the white safe. That was tough. I really feel if Mark Williams can

start stringing a few bolts together and make a decent break,

it will help his confidence and This is what he is best at, in and

He needs the opportunity like this, that is what he has been waiting

for, to get the cue are ongoing and give him a bit of confidence.

has mainly to keep his focus and not lose his concentration because

The whole thing can turnaround after the mid-session interval, so

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it is imperative he takes this It is just not happening for Mark

Williams. He is not getting close enough. He does not have that usual,

close control of the cue ball that he normally has. He is so laid back,

but he threw his cue on the floor Maybe it fell on to the floor

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because it is very rare that he Every possibility now of Mark Selby

going into the mid-session interval Worrying times for Mark Williams

and he has got a few friends here with him. A quick glance at the

scoreboard. He is working out exactly what he needs before he has

to think about the two slightly If he can get a good angle on a

colour, he can leave both of those for a pocket, but it all depends on

the angle he gets. That looks to be pretty good. He can play to eat the

cue ball where I have placed it, or he can play the cannon. It just

That is just about perfect. That was a great shot. That was a

If Mark Williams does not get on the practice table and pulls his

socks up, it is going to be a long night for him. 4-0, the first to

six, he is not out a bit by any means, but it is getting more and

Mark Williams has had enough and he concedes. It is Mark Selby who goes

into the interval winning all four frames. Mark Williams came from 4-1

down to win the last frame. He is going to have to produce something

even more special. Here is frame He could have played it a bit

harder. But he will certainly settle for that. He had to miss the

It is all about the yellow. I am not sure if he can get this into

He has finished on the pink, but that is not what he anticipated. It

must have been very thin because he could not hold it for the pink.

cannot get close to the yellow. I am wondering if he can put the cue

ball somewhere past the blue spot He has no intention of going for

the pot on the yellow, so he is Once again, he has not hit it hard

enough. The yellow should have been coming round on to the cushion

Good shot, a beautiful shot, and he is on the green. It will get past

the blue. That is his best shot It looks like Mark Williams is

going to get his first frame on the board this evening. Just making

It is not there, but barring a snooker, the Welshman has his first

frame on the board. And he did indeed put his first

frame on the scoreboard. Could he stayed another remarkable comeback?

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Not quite sure if he can pot this He found the gap because he did not

take the pot on. If he had taken the pot on, he would have can and

the other red, so that was a clever There are not many better in the

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game at that type of shot than Mark Well, how did that stay out? It

wobbled two or three times. Difficult to control the cue ball,

when it is that close to the pocket. Good chance, plenty of reds

available for the positional shot, Not the best shot, he wanted to be

straighter on that. The pink is almost straight into the pocket,

the red below the pink, but he cannot see it, so he is going to

The one he played, he wanted to be straighter on so that he could hold

for the pink, but he could see that he wasn't. He's now going to have

to play another good shot, OK, there are plenty of reds available,

with four reds, going into the right corner pocket? You would

think if he potted the brown he is bound to be on one of those. There

was a perfect angle to come off the Anywhere in the vicinity was good.

They were all lined up to be potted into this bottom right-hand corner

pocket. Take your pick. Still could have been a little bit better. He

wanted to be straighter on these reds. I am sure the pink pots into

That tells us that it does. Those three reds just below the pink spot,

or into the corner pocket, all Just getting a little bit awkward

again. It would have been so much easier if he had been on the red

that is directly in line with the corner pocket from the pink. The

pink doesn't go into the right centre this time, so a deep screw.

Still plenty of reds available that can go into both corner pockets.

That is why he has swung it across to the other side of the table. All

was going to be available into the left corner. -- Always going to. It

is amazing. He is putting everything into this effort. He

knows that this is a key frame in the match for him, now, 5-1 would

be a mountain to climb for Mark Williams. At 4-2, he would be right

Those reds to the right of the pink I think that the back one of the

two is available into the left corner pocket in a couple of shots'

time, as long as he gets a good If he plays the cannon now, just a

little match will open both reds up. -- little nudge. Nice shot. That

certainly opened things up. Just nudged that red at of the way. --

It has been well worked. He has had to go on to the brown a couple of

times then back down the table, but he has held control. It looks

almost certain, now, that he is going to lead Mark Williams 5-1 and

he will only need one more frame Would you believe this is the

highest break of the match, so far? But it has been a good break.

There's no doubt about that. Sometimes, these breaks are just as

good as centuries, from a player's point of view, especially when you

have a lot of work to do. Going up and down the table with the cue

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He has missed the blue, but a nice break of 73 from Mark Selby, giving

him the frame, and he is only one frame away from victory and a place

in the semi-final. He beats Mark Williams five frames to one. Mark

Selby just one frame away from his 4th Masters semi-final in six years.

He needed that white near the He cued that beautifully, and now,

he has got a terrific chance, with the way that the reds are open.

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Let's have a look. There are about This is a lovely position to be in,

now, isn't it? Going ahead, with a few reds and colours, before you

even have to decide to bring some Take the red away behind the black

Just makes life a little bit easier for him. He's coming round to have

a look at that red. If the black pots into that corner pocket, at

This next shot will tell us. He has the perfect angle if he wishes to

go into the pack. If this red does pot at the bottom of the pack, I'm

not sure if it does, it looks pretty tight, he has a perfect

angle to pot the black, at deep screw into the pack and, if he gets

a good split, it could be all over. Well, you have got to pot the black

He took his eye off the pot, which you can do when you are

concentrating on getting a good cannon, and that is a

straightforward pot. We have seen it happen so many times. Well, that

is not the best. He is faced with the difficult green, now. He is

having to stretch over the pack. The first red he played, he thought

he could run through and leave the blue, and already 30 points behind,

what a chance for Mark Selby. He got away with that nice on the easy

black. -- miss on the easy black. REFEREE: can you put that will well

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for a way, please? -- mobile phone He is all over the place at the

moment, Mark Williams. It has been something of a nightmare, to be

fair. He hasn't settle at all, in his quarter-final. I thought, after

beating his good friend Matthew Stevens, it looked as if he was

going to take a heavy defeat, that he had pulled it out of the fire,

but he just hasn't settled in this Not bad, OK, it is the wrong side

of the blue, but he could go between the brown and yellow, or go

the other way, with the green being off its spot, but look at the side

that he's putting on it here. Now, has the jaw of the middle pocket

help the situation? I think it has. He can just nudge on to the next

red and on to the black. Looks like it is all over here. He's going to

have to do something very careless, with the ball sitting like this.

Already, 40 in front. I don't know when he will be heading back to the

valleys, but the weather is pretty horrendous over that side of the

country. He will be just hoping that things clear up tomorrow,

because I cannot see Mark Selby It has been a funny game. You are

expecting fireworks from these two great players, but it hasn't

happened. The highest break from Mark Williams, only 48, and from

Mark Selby, the highest frame of the whole match in the last game,

73. It tells you that these cloths are so lively, the tables are

beautiful to play on, but if you are so slightly off your game, it

is so easy to run out of position. When you're playing well they a

beautiful to play on, but if you are off your game, they can make

you look a little bit silly at That will be the end of Mark

He is coming back to the table, but only to shake hands. It was a poor

display from the Welshman. He will be disappointed. But in the end

Mark Selby goes through to the semi-final, be very comfortable

winner, 6-1. I do not think it was a 6-1 scoreline, the first three

frames could have gone either way, but fortunately I managed to win

all four of them. I thought if it went 2-2-1 he was still in the

match, but at 3-0, I felt comfortable. I felt upon it, and

I'm sure that Mark did, both of us did not perform like we're capable

of, but I am delighted to be in the semi-final. At the end of the day,

that has given me a huge amount of confidence. I went to Germany and I

wonder, as well. -- won there. here is the semi-final line-up.

Defending champion Neil Robertson is up against Shaun Murphy, seeking

his first Masters title, and two- time champion Mark Selby will be

playing against Graeme Dott, the scores in making his first

appearance in the last four of the Masters. Just 10 to remind you that

snooker extra follows next, and you can see extend highlights of Judd