Murphy makes early Masters exit

THE MASTERS
Venue: Wembley Arena, London Date: Sunday 11 - Sunday 18 January
Coverage: BBC Television, BBC Red Button and BBC Sport website

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Highlights - Selby sneaks past Walden

World number three and UK champion Shaun Murphy made an early exit from the Wembley Masters after a 6-4 defeat to China's Ding Junhui.

Defending champion Mark Selby edged into the quarter-finals after narrowly beating Ricky Walden 6-5.

Earlier Mark Allen won the battle of the Masters debutants when he defeated Judd Trump 6-4 to reach the last 16.

Tuesday's action sees John Higgins take on Marco Fu while Ryan Day will meet Allen later in the day.

Murphy had led his Chinese opponent 2-1 in the afternoon match at Wembley but soon trailed.

Having won the UK Championship against Fu last month he had been among the favourites to lift the Masters title at Wembley.

606: DEBATE Have your say on Murphy's defeat

But he soon found himself 5-3 down and despite a 93 break which moved him to within a frame he was eventually beaten by Ding.

"I'm disappointed to lose, although it's nice to see Ding playing with freedom and enjoying himself," said Murphy.

Selby meanwhile had looked to have been cruising to victory against Walden after a 100 break gave him a 4-2 lead. But the defending champion allowed his opponent back into the game.

And in a tense finish Selby took the final frame to book his place in the quarter-finals.

Earlier Northern Ireland's Allen, one of the game's rising stars, moved into a 3-1 interval lead and held on to claim a 6-4 victory against his English opponent Trump.

Trump did have the consolation of a superb break of 123 which he scored in the ninth frame of the match.

"I didn't settle at all really, I struggled to adjust to the pace of the table, it's beautiful," said Allen.

"They were relatively easy shots, but I just kept missing them.

"Going into the interval 3-1 up, when I probably couldn't have played any worse, settled me down."