UK Championship 2020 - Neil Robertson races past Mark Selby into semi-finals
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Updated 04/12/2020 at 20:23 GMT
After coming into this titanic quarter-final tussle in fine form, a superb Neil Robertson showed no sign of slowing down as he ruthlessly dispatched Mark Selby at the UK Championship to storm into the semi-finals, where he will face Zhou Yuelong in the last four.
Neil Robertson
Image credit: Eurosport
Neil Robertson has booked his spot in the last four of the UK Championship after dispatching Mark Selby 6-2 in ruthless fashion.
The Australian started the match in fine form, with a break of 75 putting him in the lead, with only a difficult red preventing him from registering a ton.
He was even more supreme in the second frame, with a century clearance doubling his lead, with Selby forced to watch on from his chair as the match seemed to be slipping away from him.
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'Can't play much better than this' - Robertson sinks century
Robertson was 63-0 up in the third frame before finally registering an error, with a missed black giving Selby the chance to pot his first ball of the encounter. However, the three-time world champion had no margin for error and after missing a red and losing a safety battle, Robertson went 3-0 up.
Prior to the mid-session interval, Selby finally got on the board thanks to two breaks of 40 either side of some safety errors from Robertson, the first time the Australian's defences had not been up to the task.
A fortuitous plant set up Selby for two half-century breaks as he won his second straight frame to reduce the deficit to one and suddenly Robertson's commanding lead was under threat.
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Robertson sparkles with break of 75 in opening frame against Selby
An overzealous shot on the blue curtailed a break of 21 from Robertson and suddenly Selby was in. But a misplaced positional shot set up Robertson for the clearance and the 38-year-old was two frames ahead once more.
And Robertson never looked back, as a break of 91 in the seventh frame, put him on the cusp of victory, before finishing with a flourish, as his 750th century break put the icing on the cake.
In the other quarter-final Zhou Yuelong beat Jack Lisowski 6-4.
O’Sullivan: Robertson can't get any better than this
It was a performance that prompted O’Sullivan, working as a pundit for Eurosport, to declare Robertson to be at the peak of his powers.
“It is like he is playing on a pool table - it is like the table is shrinking and that is a beautiful feeling,” O’Sullivan said. “Ask any snooker player what it feels like to play well and they will tell you: the table feels small and it feels easy!
He is just striking the ball really well – and is a player that is at the peak of his powers, I don’t think he can get any better than this. He is just a great all-round player.
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O’Sullivan: Robertson can't get any better than this
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