Mark Selby into fourth successive British Open semi-final after whitewash win

Selby reached the 71st world ranking event semi-final of his illustrious career after whitewashing an out-of-sorts Jack Lisowski, 5-0.

On current form this week at The Centaur in Cheltenham - in addition to his decent head-to-head record against someone so decorated - it was understandable to have Lisowski down as favourite for the match, but the reigning Northern Ireland Open champion made a plethora of errors and registered a highest break of just 18.

Selby took the opening frame with the aid of an 82, and after doubling, and then trebling his lead, the current UK and China Open champion went into the mid-session interval 4-0 up with the help of a 64.

And on resumption, four-time world champion Selby put his opponent out of his misery for a clean sweep.

Impressively, Selby is through to at least the semi-finals of the 'FA Cup-style' random draw British Open for a fourth consecutive year.

In 2023 he was runner-up to Mark Williams, but lifted The Clive Everton Trophy in 2024 after defeating John Higgins in the final. Last year, his title reign was ended by eventual champion Shaun Murphy.

Following his recent stay in the Far East during which he lifted the trophy in Taiyuan and made the quarter-finals of the Wuhan Open, earlier this week Selby admitted to feeling fatigued with the brisk turnaround in events from one side of the world to the other.

And his journey through the opening rounds of this £502,000 tournament didn't help matters, with each of his first three match wins going to a decider.

His last 16 tie with Ukrainian youngster Iulian Boiko on Thursday night - which he won 4-2 - wasn't exactly a walk in the park for Selby either, so he'll be delighted to have won very comfortably against Lisowski today, giving him time to prepare for a big weekend.

On the other table during Friday's afternoon session, world number 69 Liam Highfield defeated world number 41 Stan Moody, 5-2.

In an intriguing clash where both cueists were aiming to make the semi-finals of a ranking competition for the first time, breaks of 73 and 74 assisted 35-year-old Highfield to a 3-1 lead.

Highfield was initially less fluent after the interval, but - having seen teenager Moody half the gap - he ousted a very close frame six, before a cool contribution of 56 in the seventh scored him the biggest win of his professional career, so far.

It was 2010 when Highfield first turned professional, but in recent months he has perhaps enjoyed his most consistent spell, and this comes just a couple of years after he was on the amateur circuit having lost his tour card.

Back in the spring, Highfield navigated four rounds of preliminaries to qualify for the Crucible, where on the opening day he kept then-defending champion Zhao Xintong very honest before bowing out with a 10-7 loss.

He has carried over brilliant form into this season; in the qualifying round for this event several weeks ago, he crafted a maximum 147 break in the opening frame of his 4-1 victory over former UK Champion Stephen Maguire. It was Highfield's first feat of baize perfection in top-flight action, and he is in pole position to scoop a £5,000 bonus.

Getting into this weekend’s one-table set-up has already matched Highfield's biggest single payday of £20,000.

Shortly after Selby's win, the semi-final draw was conducted live on Channel 5 with the winners from the afternoon session paired off against each other. They will play in a best-of-11 frames affair on Saturday afternoon from 13:00BST.

To view the full draw, results, schedule, and other information from the 2026 British Open snooker, visit our tournament information centre here.