Rocket unimpressed with display

Ronnie O'Sullivan was again thoroughly underwhelmed with his performance after beating Peter Ebdon 6-3 in their Pokerstars.com Masters quarter-final at Wembley Arena on Thursday afternoon.

O'Sullivan delivered a scathing appraisal of his game after fighting back from 3-0 down to beat Neil Robertson in the last round, saying a lot of the time he was playing "sub-standard shots". There appeared little to be unhappy with early on today as the Essex potter raced into a 4-0 lead in just over an hour but O'Sullivan was especially unhappy with how he finished the contest.

"Peter could have won the game quite easily," he told BBC2. "I would rather be 3-0 down and hit a bit of momentum than be 3-0 up and feel like I'm stalling when I come to the table. Most of the time I'm missing a lot of shots and it was difficult to find confidence out there. The long game I've got at the moment is just laughable."

O'Sullivan got off to a flying start as breaks of 92, 53 and 74 in the opening three frames helped him seize control of the match.

Ebdon stopped the rot as a fluked final red helped him take the fifth frame and the 2002 world champion reduced the deficit to two by edging a tight sixth, despite a 54 break from his opponent.

O'Sullivan moved to within one frame of victory only to be pegged back again by the 2002 world champion before a 106 got him over the line.

He will meet Mark Williams in the semi-finals after the Welshman defeated Shaun Murphy 6-4.

Murphy won the first frame but that was as good as it got for the 2005 world champion, with a break of 76 enabling Williams to level the match.

The left-hander from Cwm went 2-1 ahead with breaks of 53 and 51 and took control of the contest, winning three of the next four frames.

Murphy reduced the deficit to two frames - 5-3 - with an excellent break of 57, and then showed yet more nerve to romp to victory in the ninth frame with a break of 97. But Williams claimed a see-saw tenth to seal victory.