Yesterday’s last 16 match between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Peter Ebdon could have been a nail biter but instead turned into sort of a one man show. O’Sullivan took the lead early on and kept it up until the very end. He played very well and everything seemed to work for him, even the long pots that he’s had some trouble with lately. O’Sullivan didn’t have to give the match his all though as Ebdon’s form was quite bad. His long pot success rate was especially low and he failed to take his chances when he needed to. The match ended 9-3 and O’Sullivan now has a potentially tough encounter against Mark Selby ahead of him. Selby didn’t have too difficult a time beating Stephen Hendry 9-5, even though Hendry fought well.

Stephen Maguire’s victory over Stuart Bingham was very convincing and he will now face Peter Lines in the quarter finals. Lines success in the match against Mark Williams was of course a surprise considering his spot at 64, in the world rankings but Williams wouldn’t give up without a struggle and the match ended 9-8.

Not quite as surprising, but still something of a minor sensation was Liang Wenbo’s 9-2 victory over Mark King. Liang now has a tough match against John Higgins to look forward to. Speaking of Higgins, he was quite sure to win over Neil Robertson at 8-6 but Robertson gave a powerful effort to make Higgins sweat a little. For a while it looked like he was going to make it but Higgins refused to give in and won 9-8.

Premier League winner and defending champion Shaun Murphy is no longer in the tournament after a disappointing 9-3 loss against the 2005 champion, Ding Junhui.

Finally, Ali Carter beat Stephen Lee 9-5 and will meet Ding in the last eight. More exciting, high-quality snooker is coming up later today. There’s still a lot to look forward to.