Richard Mann previews the first two quarter-finals of the Dafabet Masters, where Ronnie O'Sullivan takes on Ryan Day.
Ronnie O'Sullivan's quest for an eighth Masters title got off to the perfect start with an impressive 6-2 defeat of former world champion Stuart Bingham in round one and The Rocket faces Ryan Day in the last eight on Thursday afternoon.
O'Sullivan stroked in two centuries alongside a 96 break on Monday and his game looks in typically good shape on the back of a Christmas break that came hot on the heels of winning his record seventh UK Championship title in York.
Expect things to get tougher from here on in, though, with Day enjoying a consistent season so far and fancied to provide a sterner examination of his credentials following his own victory over John Higgins in the first round.
In truth, Higgins has been desperately short of his best form this season but Day deserves plenty of credit for knuckling down well having trailed 3-1 at the mid-session interval.
Day could have easily let frustration get the better of him having had his pocket picked twice by Higgins in the early exchanges but the Welshman responded well to reel off three frames on the bounce before later holding his nerve to produce a flawless clearance of 128 in the deciding frame.
Having made five quarter-finals already this season, Day is clearly in decent nick at present and the way he held himself together on Sunday would suggest he won't be overawed by the prospect of facing O'Sullivan on his home patch.
Day actually pushed O'Sullivan close when the pair met in the last 16 of the World Championship at the Crucible back in 2006 - eventually losing 13-10 - and there is every reason to think we could see another close match on Thursday.
Expect O'Sullivan to come through this one but it won't be easy and with that in mind, I'm keen to back over 9.5 frames at 9/5.
The evening quarter-final on Thursday sees Luca Brecel bid to back up his excellent first-round victory over Mark Allen when taking on Ding Junhui.
Brecel has struggled so far this season but produced a polished display to see off defending champion Allen 6-5 in a high-quality affair.
2011 Masters winner Ding is another who has yet to fire so far this term but he shaped much more like his old self when beating the talented Jack Lisowski on Monday and, assuming Brecel is able to produce something close to his opening-round exploits, we could have another fascinating encounter on our hands.
As such, 21/10 about Brecel looks perfectly fair but with the strong suspicion that Ding is close to finding peak form again, and his previous 100 per cent record against his Belgium rival, I'm more comfortable taking a look at the handicap markets.
With a tight and potentially tense tussle in prospect, Brecel (+1.5) at around 11/10 looks the safer play in a match that offers the carrot of a potential semi-final against O'Sullivan.
