Welsh Open 2023 snooker LIVE – Shaun Murphy kicks off quarter-finals, Ronnie O’Sullivan follows

Friday's quarter-final schedule Ad 12:00 Welsh Open'Age is not important' — O'Sullivan tells 'unbelievable' Mertens to embrace pressure9 HOURS AGO Shaun Murphy v Yuan Sijun 14:30 Tian Pengfei v Ronnie O'Sullivan 19:00 Joe O'Connor v Pang Junxu Robert Milkins v Mark Allen 'I felt like Neo from the Matrix' — Murphy blown away by 147 and 145 breaks Shaun Murphy felt he had cracked the code and was «like Neo from the Matrix» during a purple patch in his win over Daniel Wells at the Welsh Open. With his form much improved in the 2022/23 season, Murphy hit rare heights in his 4-1 win over Wells.

He wrestled the high break from David Gilbert in the second frame thanks to a 145, but that was a mere hors d'oeuvres for the main course of a maximum 147 that followed one frame later. Assessing how he felt during that remarkable 20-minute period, Murphy said: “Very briefly, I felt like Neo from the Matrix.

I was seeing green lines everywhere. “That’s what the hours of practice are for, to get in when that happens and try to keep it going.

“The flipside of that is in the next frame I had a chance to put the match to bed and messed it up, so it does not last forever. “It’s just your alignment clicks, your sighting clicks, your striking clicks and all the balls go in.