2025 Xi'an Grand Prix semi-finals preview: Can anyone stop a red-hot Shaun Murphy?

Shaun Murphy, Gary Wilson, Mark Williams and Daniel Wells all negotiated their respective quarter-final assignments on Saturday at the Qujiang Athletic Centre.

A seriously in-form Murphy is the favourite for the trophy; the newly-minted British Open champion is going for back-to-back ranking event titles, and the Englishman moved a step closer to that achievement following a 5-3 victory over home hero Ding Junhui.

Murphy nearly set a new world record for unanswered points during his last 16 sweeping of reigning champion Kyren Wilson the day before, and breaks of 77, 66 and 121 today helped him build a commanding 4-1 lead over Ding.

Three-time UK Championship winner Ding battled back to within a frame of his opponent, and scored first in frame eight, but Murphy registered a run of 94 to get the job done and record his 12th successive match win on the World Snooker Tour.

Murphy will meet Gary Wilson in the last four after the world number 17 stopped Ronnie O’Sullivan with a 5-2 win.

Wilson compiled the sixth maximum 147 break of his professional career last week during the International Championship qualifiers, and he has brought his scoring boots with him to China for this tournament - he made a brace of centuries in each of his opening four matches here.

And against seven-time world champion O'Sullivan, Wilson produced the goods again, crafting efforts of 74, 101 and 79 as he established a 3-0 lead.

O'Sullivan - who had dropped just three frames in four matches en route to the last eight - constructed runs of 65 and 84 either side of the mid-session interval to pull it back to 3-2.

However, Wilson racked up his tenth ton of the week in frame six (120 - keeping up his record of two centuries per match) before he countered with a match-winning 62 in the seventh.

Wilson is aiming for consecutive ranking event finals in China having been ousted to the Wuhan Open title in late August by Xiao Guodong.

In terms of their head-to-head record, Murphy leads Wilson 5-3 in all top flight competitions, although Wilson came out on top of their most recent meeting in Wuhan several weeks ago.

Prior to this tournament, no player on this season’s professional circuit had appeared in more than one final. The winner of this tie will be the first.

The opening semi-final on Sunday in Xi’an will be an all-Welsh affair between Wells and Williams.

World number 47 Wells clearly loves playing here. He made the final four last year at the inaugural staging, and he’s back at that stage again following a 5-2 win against youngster Liam Pullen.

This will be the 37-year-old’s fourth ranking event semi-final, and he’s aiming to make his maiden title tie. But that task will be very tricky indeed as he takes on compatriot Williams who is trying to reach his 44th ranking final.

50-year-old Williams would become professional snooker’s oldest-ever ranking event champion if he lifts the trophy on Monday. For the second round in-a-row, he came through a deciding frame finish, this time shading Lyu Haotian, 5-4.

From 1-0 down, Williams took four of the next five frames to reach the hill first at 4-2 up before Lyu rallied, although the three-time world champion eventually progressed.

In terms of previous meetings between the two on snooker's top tier there isn't much to go by, although it doesn't make for good reading for Wells.

Williams won 5-1 in the 2014 China Open and 6-0 in the 2018 UK Championship, but Wells is a lot more experienced now.

Both semi-finals are the best of 11 frames with start times of 07:00BST (Williams v Wells) and 12:30BST (Murphy v Wilson).

Visit our 2025 Xi’an Grand Prix tournament information centre here for details on the draw, results, prize money, schedule and how to watch.