Tian Pengfei claimed the biggest win of his professional career when routing Ronnie O'Sullivan 5-0 at the Welsh Open.
Despite enduring a chaotic passage to the last eight, one marred by a troublesome tip, O'Sullivan started as hot favourite for the match and tournament.
However, he was never at the races and couldn't recover from a sloppy start that allowed his opponent to take early control.
To Tian's credit, he produced a polished display that earns him a place in his first ranking tournament semi-final, and breaks of 66 and 51 settled any early nerves he may have been feeling.
2-0 became 3-0 when O'Sullivan inexplicably missed a simple blue to hand Tian the third frame, and the match was as good as done by that point.
O'Sullivan continued to cut a dejected figure as his miserable run in this season's ranking events continued, and Tian finished the job with well-taken runs of 82 and 73.
Murphy books semi-final spot
Shaun Murphy progressed to the last four with a ruthless 5-0 whitewash of Yuan Sijun.
Murphy has been one of the form horses all week and having made a 147 maximum break in his win over Daniel Wells on Thursday, he was at again just 24 hours later.
For Yuan, it was a match of missed opportunities having squandered advantages at various stages of the match, namely in the first and fourth frames, the latter proving a particularly cruel blow from which he was unable to recover.
Having claimed that opening frame, Murphy followed up with back-to-back breaks of 81 to race into a 3-0 lead, before Yuan looked sure to win frame four.
However, despite building a huge lead, he was unable to kill off the frame and Murphy cleared the table in ruthless fashion to move within touching distance of the semi-finals.
Victory was complete when Murphy dominated the next frame, keeping alive his hopes of winning the tournament for a second time having claimed first prize in 2020.
In the evening session, Mark Allen had a rare bad day at the office as he suffered a 5-1 defeat at the hands of Robert Milkins.
Neither player was at their best throughout, but Milkins won the key moments to maintain his strong run of recent form.
It was much harder work for Pang Junxu who came through a gruelling match with Joe O'Connor, eventually prevailing 5-4.
