Shanghai Masters: Nottingham's Michael Holt into semi-final
Nottingham's Michael Holt reached the first ranking event semi-final of his 17-year career at the Shanghai Masters.
Last Updated: 20/09/13 5:46pm
The 35-year-old has recorded some big scalps in the game's biggest tournaments but never before this week had he reached the last four.
Holt began this week with a thumping 5-1 win over Judd Trump, backed it up by ousting Martin Gould, and then put paid to Kettering-based world No 100 Wilson's hopes of going any further.
He had breaks of 85, 64 and a closing 80 in a 5-1 victory over Wilson.
Wilson had knocked out Stuart Bingham and Marco Fu in the opening two rounds, settling comfortably into his maiden major tournament, however against Holt the 21-year-old was emphatically outscored by an overall 462-117.
The crushing win for Holt sets up a semi-final against Xiao Guodong, who delighted the Chinese audience by beating England's Mark Davis 5-4.
Xiao fell 3-1 behind as 6-Reds World Championship winner Davis began the match in sizzling form with 63, 71 and 87, but the 24-year-old Chinese player battled back against his 41-year-old opponent and rattled off breaks of 50, 67 and two runs of 61.
With Holt and Xiao set to battle it out on Saturday for a place in Sunday's final the evening session on Friday saw world No 2 Mark Selby surprisingly beaten 5-4 by Barry Hawkins in an English affair, and a second Chinese Ding Junhui easily defeating the world's top ranked player Neil Robertson of Australia 5-2.
