SHEFFIELD (England), April 30 It was a tale of contrasting fortunes for two former Scottish snooker world champions here on Wednesday as seven-time champion Stephen Hendry lost 13-11 to Shaun Murphy but two-time champion John Higgins performed another Houdini act to move through to the semi-finals.

Hendry went from the high of becoming the oldest player to score a maximum 147 break in a world ranking tournament at the age of 40 on Tuesday to going out while Higgins too looked to be joining him before prevailing 13-12 over 2007 runner-up Mark Selby.

It was the second successive match that had seen 33-year-old Higgins prevail by the tightest of margins and sets him up with a semi-final clash with Northern Ireland's surprise package Mark Allen, who beat Ryan Day 13-11 to add to the scalp of Ronnie O'Sullivan in the previous round.

Murphy — champion in 2005 — will play Australian blond bombshell Neil Robertson in the last four after the exuberant Aussie beat second seed Stephen Maguire 13-8.

Murphy had fought back after Hendry's magnificent clearance to build a 9-7 overnight lead and on Wednesday he finished the match with a century.

Results

Quarter-finals (best of 25 frames)

Shaun Murphy (England) bt Stephen Hendry (Scotland) 13-11; Mark Allen (Northern Ireland) bt Ryan Day (Wales) 13-11; Neil Robertson (Australia) bt Stephen Maguire (Scotland) 13-8; John Higgins (Scotland) bt Mark Selby (England) 13-12.—AFP