O'Sullivan and Higgins
The Rocket came up against a rampant Kyren Wilson who took the first three frames with some scintillating long pots despite not making big breaks. A cool O'Sullivan however, came to life in the next three with three rampant centuries of 108, 117, and a 126.
The decider saw O'Sullivan play a loose safety and Wilson held his nerve with a 70 plus break to win the match and claim a victorious scalp over the Rocket. The 25-year-old who won his first ranking title in 2015 was runner-up this season to Anthony McGill in the Indian Open.
He told Eurosport after: "I didn't think I did that much wrong in the match apart from that pink!" He added: "Happy days" He said when you get a chance against Ronnie you need to take them and he likes to go for his shots anyway.
Higgins Falls
Wilson's win comes as the Wizard of Wishaw John Higgins's run of 11 match wins came to an end on 12 as the two-time World Champion Mark Williams defeated the 41-year-old Scot 4 - 1.
Higgins won back to back titles in the past two weeks at the Champion of Champions and the China Championship and pocketed well over £300,000 in the space of two weeks. O'Sullivan said earlier in the week that he was using this tournament as practice for the UK Championship in York later this month.
Earlier on this week, Higgins made the 123rd official 147 and his eighth career 147 and the fifth 147 this season! Wilson will face Mark Williams in the quarter-finals on Friday. Home favourite Mark Allen came through his last 16 match and will face Anthony Hamilton.
Michael White, Barry Hawkins and Iranian Hossein Vafaei Ayouri and Mark King are all the other quarter-finalists.
Hamilton, previously a World ranked 10 player, is still at the age of 45 seeking his first ranking event title, despite being in two previous finals in 1999 and 2002.
His last quarter-final was in 2013 at the Wuxi Classic. Liang Wenbo's dream of pocketing a £1 million first prize for winning all four of the Home Nations tournaments came to an end. £70,000 is on offer for the winner of each tournament and the Alex Higgins trophy for whoever wins at the Titanic Exhibition Centre in Belfast.
