A busy day in Glasgow saw 32 become eight as the Scottish Open quarter-final line-up was completed on Thursday.
Four top 16 players remain in the hunt for the third Home Nations series event of the season at the Emirates Arena.
Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen will be among the favourites from here as last week’s UK Championship runner-up continued his strong form to reach the Scottish Open quarter-final.
The 32 year-old overcame Yuan Sijun and Graeme Dott as two rounds were contested on the fourth day of action.
Allen will take on Alfie Burden for a semi-final berth, the latter having dispatched of local man John Higgins to end home participation in this year’s tournament.
Burden has reached this stage of a ranking event for only the fourth time in his career and it’s arguably the most impressive, as he came from 3-0 behind in both his second and third round encounters before seeing off four-time world champion Higgins.
The Londonder has only met Allen once before in a ranking event, which came in last month’s International Championship when the Antrim man prevailed with a 6-1 scoreline en route to securing the title in Daqing.
Also featuring in the bottom half of the Scottish Open quarter-final draw are Welsh duo Ryan Day and Daniel Wells.
Wells was due to face Ronnie O’Sullivan in his opening fixture and has taken full advantage of the world number three’s decision to withdraw following his success in York on Sunday.
The 30 year-old from Neath dropped only a single frame as he ousted Mark Joyce and countryman Matthew Stevens to set up the clash with Day, who ousted Anthony Hamilton and Ding Junhui.
Day and Wells have faced off on three occasions with all of their prior battles going the way of the former.
Meanwhile, the opposite side also features a pair of proven winners against a couple of lower ranked competitors.
Judd Trump maintained his bid to capture a second ranking trophy of the campaign with a brace of 4-1 triumphs over Zhang Jiankang and Ian Burns.
The Englishman will battle with countryman Stuart Carrington, with both sharing a long history of facing each other all the way back to their junior days.
Trump has won three out of their four battles on the Main Tour, including in November at the Northern Ireland Open when the 29 year-old proceeding to claim the title.
Finally, Shaun Murphy continued his mini resurgence in form to reach this stage of a ranking event for the first time this season.
The “Magician” edged Kyren Wilson 4-3 in a high-scoring tie to set up his Scottish Open quarter-final match with Sam Baird, who denied Ali Carter by the same margin.
Murphy has struggled for the majority of this campaign, somewhat amazingly failing to go beyond the opening hurdle of ranking events six times since the summer.
Interestingly, two of those early defeats occurred against Baird, who thumped Murphy 6-0 in the International Championship before also overcoming the former world champion in Belfast.