Ding Junhui beats Graeme Dott to make Masters semi-finals

Ding Junhui compiled three centuries in the first four frames to beat Graeme Dott 6-2 and reach tomorrow's semi-finals of The Masters at Wembley Arena. Ding was only 18 when he won the first of his four ranking titles and at 23 has at least 10 prime years in front of him but as the standard bearer for the Chinese snooker revolution the burden of national expectation has often weighed heavily on his shoulders. In China, which in terms of numbers is snooker's foremost nation, he is a superstar but lacks the flamboyance or a sufficiently outgoing nature which would give him anything approaching similar status here. But if all he has to declare is his talent, he has it in abundance. Keeping the cue ball on a characteristically tight string, he made breaks of 124, 108 and 124 to go 3-1 up. Dott, who won the 2006 world title and appeared in two other world finals, won the fifth frame and was leading 38-0 in the sixth when his promising recovery was halted. Taking the cue ball into the bunch of remaining reds, he was very unlucky to leave it touching one red and unable to pot that or any other. "I'm not saying I would have won but if it hadn't finished touching ball I would have been 3-3 guaranteed," he said. As it was, from 4-2, Ding added the two remaining frames he needed without much trouble to leave himself only one win away from his second Masters final. He ended his first, in 2007, in disarray when he was so upset by the remarks of some spectators that, at 9-3 down, he would not have emerged for the next and last frame without some kindly words from his opponent, Ronnie O'Sullivan.