Higgins shoots down Rocket

John Higgins reached the last four of the Bank of Beijing China Open on Friday afternoon after coming through a scrappy quarter-final encounter with world number one Ronnie O'Sullivan.

World champion O'Sullivan came back from 3-1 down to level the match at 4-4 against Higgins, before two missed blacks cost 'The Rocket' dear as the Scot capitalised to win 5-4.

The two-time Crucible winner will play Ryan Day, after he thrashed 2005 world champion Shaun Murphy 5-0.

O'Sullivan took the first frame with some ruthless play after Higgins had missed a long pot, only for the Scot to recover in fine style, taking the next three to open up a commanding lead.

The Rocket then won a dramatic fifth frame on the black and came through an error-strewn sixth to level the match at 3-3 but both players continued to make mistakes in the seventh before Higgins composed himself to draw within one frame of victory. O'Sullivan rallied again to take the match into a ninth-frame decider but missed two easy blacks, which Higgins capitalised on to complete the victory.

Meanwhile, Day was whitewashing Murphy with some steady cue work after the UK champion had been unable to complete a series of breaks.

The Welshman, who reached the semi-finals last season, did not need a break of higher than 54 until the final frame and made amends for his heavy defeat against Murphy in the Malta Cup final two years ago.

The other semi-final will see Stuart Pettman take on Peter Ebdon after victories over Graeme Dott and Stephen Hendry, respectively, earlier in the day.

Pettman was delighted with his 5-2 win, which maintained his superb run of form this week that has also seen him overcome Ali Carter and Mark Allen and go beyond the last 16 of a ranking tournament for the first time in his 17-year career.

Ebdon was equally ecstatic with his performance, a dominant 5-1 victory over the seven-time world champion and part of the Englishman's continuing recovery after a poor season.