Once again two completely different matches, although this time it doesn’t translate into the scorelines.

Ronnie beat Neil Robertson in a match that mixed great shots and bad misses. It was thrilling in its own way, but hardly top quality snooker. You can read all about it here.

Marco Fu on the other hand produced a very high standard to defeat Mark Allen by 6-2.

Here is the report on Worldsnooker:

Thursday 19 Jan 2017 09:58PM

Marco Fu cruised into the semi-finals of the Dafabet Masters with a 6-2 win over Mark Allen and looks in good enough form to beat his next opponent – Ronnie O’Sullivan.

Fu is playing the best snooker of his career so far, having won the Scottish Open last month and continued his hot streak this week in London. The world number eight from Hong Kong has made four centuries and nine more breaks over 50 in his two matches at Alexandra Palace.

He now faces what could be an epic clash against crowd favourite O’Sullivan on Saturday afternoon, with the winner to go through to Sunday’s final. Fu’s best Masters run came in 2011 when he got to the final before losing to Ding Junhui.

Breaks of 74 and 83 put Fu 2-0 ahead tonight and he stole the third frame by clearing from the last red. Allen battled back to 3-2 with runs of 70 and 54, but he then scored just five points in the last three frames.

Fu’s 97 made it 4-2 then he made a 140 total clearance, the new front-runner for the £10,000 high break prize. And he sealed victory in frame eight with a run of 65.

“I played very well today,” said three-time ranking event winner Fu. “Right from the start I was 100 per cent focused because I needed to be like that against a player of Mark’s calibre. I’m just really happy with my game at the moment.

“Winning the match was the most important thing – to get the high break as well was a bonus. Everything seems to be coming together at the right time

“These games are what I practise for, to be able to play Ronnie at the Masters. It’s the match that everyone dreams about, playing Jimmy in London, Ronnie in London. I’m looking forward to it a lot.

“I’m hoping I can get even better but at the moment I’m playing the best snooker of my life. The spell started at the UK Championship, continued in Scotland and it’s still going now. I couldn’t ask for a better time to have a good spell.

“I’m still a dark horse for the event because I’ve never won it before. Technically, I don’t know what it takes to win this tournament. I hope this is my week, but I’m just taking it one match at a time.”

Asked about a few shouts from the crowd during the match, Fu added: “It wasn’t nasty shouting, they just shouted at the wrong time. I felt for Mark because they were his supporters. I’ve seen a lot worse before. It didn’t really bother me, but I’m sure it affected Mark a little bit.”

Watch here Marco’s 140, currently the tournament HB:

There is no doubt that Ronnie will need to improve a lot to beat Marco in this form. But as I wrote earlier, as long as he is still in it, he still has a chance.