Mark Selby, the 2008 Masters champion, and former world champion Peter Ebdon overcame their opponents in the second round of the Masters to ensure that at least two Englishman will compete in this year’s quarter-finals.

Selby saw off the challenge of the current UK Champion, Ding Junhui, in the first of Sunday’s two matches. The Jester from Leicester was in blistering form throughout the match and needed just seven frames to send the Chinese 22-year-old crashing out of the tournament – winning the tie by six frames to one.

Coming out to the Wembley crowd to Underdog by Kasabian, Selby’s progression to the quarter-finals was rarely in doubt. In fact, the song choices should really have been reversed – Ding came out to Eye of the Tiger by Survivor but finished the bout looking more like Clubber Lang than Rocky Balboa.

Selby went 5-0 ahead after dominating the first five frames – his pot success percentage immaculate, well into the high 90s.

Ding showed glimpses of his fighting spirit and capitalised on a rare slip-up from his opponent in the sixth, doing brilliantly to clear up after Selby had amassed a break of 53.

But this was as good as it got for the Chinese snooker star, as Selby finished the job in hand in the seventh to set up a mouth-watering potential quarter-final against John Higgins or Mark Allen.

Next up at Wembley was Ebdon, who was looking to make it to the quarter-final stage of the Masters for the first time since 2008 after last year’s crushing 6-0 defeat in the last 16 of the competition against Ali Carter.

However, after a terrible first two frames it seemed as if the 39-year-old was on course for another disappointing Masters performance, as his opponent, Hong Kong’s Marco Fu, took a 2-0 lead.

Ebdon managed to regain his composure after another series of errors in the third – fortunately for The Force, Fu made his own mistakes in that frame to allow the Englishman back into the match.

He then levelled proceedings in the fourth after a break of 47 as the two players went into the mid-session interval at 2-2 – a scoreline that Fu would have been kicking himself at – the crowd equally as bewildered as the Hong Kong-born star at how Ebdon had managed to sneak back into contention.

However, Ebdon returned after the interval a different player, and finally began to make his presence felt inside the arena.

Breaks of 66 and 63 and in the third and fourth frames, respectively, fired Ebdon 4-2 in front. And in the crucial seventh frame, the Briton withstood the pressure exerted by Fu to put himself 5-2 ahead, just one frame off a place in the quarters.

Any hopes that Fu had of mounting a late comeback were quickly extinguished as his opponent accelerated into top gear. An impressive break of 93 in the final frame was more than enough evidence to suggest that Ebdon should never be ruled out of contention, as he secured a 6-2 win along his place in the next round.

But his biggest test will come on Thursday afternoon as he gears up to face the winner of the clash between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Neil Robertson – tomorrow afternoon’s match which promises to be the stand-out tie of next round.

Rob Swan