Snooker:Ronnie O'Sullivan and John Higgins set up a stellar semi-final encounter at the UK Championship by posting crushing victories in their respective last-eight matches in Telford this evening.
World number one O'Sullivan held a 6-2 lead over Mark Selby heading into the evening session and lost just one further frame on his way to wrapping up a 9-3 triumph.
Higgins was even more decisive as he won three frames out of three in the evening session to complete a one-sided 9-2 win over China's Liang Wenbo.
O'Sullivan was slow out of the blocks in the evening session against Selby, who was clearly keen to atone for costly errors in the fifth and eighth frames earlier in the day.
Selby played his way back from the brink of defeat and into a winning position in the fifth, only to miss a simple blue and go 4-1 down, and then surrendered control of the eighth frame with a miss on the final brown, leaving him trailing 6-2 at the interval.
But Selby pulled it back to 6-3 with a sublime opening frame this evening, a break of 136 a strong statement of intent but which only served to bring out the best in his opponent.
Selby spurned an opening in the next when he missed a red that might have got him back in the frame after O'Sullivan had moved clear, and the three-time world champion punished him with a break of 92 to restore his four-frame lead.
Selby looked in control in the next but made error after building a comfortable lead, paving the way for the Rocket to move to the brink of victory with another solid break.
A 12th frame littered with errors finally went the way of O'Sullivan.
The Londoner made the killer breakthrough with a long green followed by an equally difficult brown. The blue followed to leave Selby needing two snookers and, after trading safety shots when Selby surprisingly failed to concede, O'Sullivan finally made sure as he sank the pink to put the result beyond doubt.
Higgins' win over Liang rarely looked in doubt after he raced into a 5-0 lead earlier in the day.
Breaks of 90 and 110 in the opening three frames had put him in the box seat, and he had even been on course for a 147 until being forced to settle for a blue on 104 in the third.
Liang took two of the final three frames of the afternoon session as he finally found some rhythm, but the Chinese player had no answer this evening as the class of his Scottish opponent told.
A break of 56 was ultimately sufficient for Higgins to move 7-2 ahead in the opening frame of the evening session, while a 73 break and a classy 115 secured his serene progress to the final four.