Doherty crashes out of Shanghai Masters

Shaun Murphy dismantled Ken Doherty to record his second straight 5-0 win and book his place in the semi-finals of the Roewe Shanghai Masters.

Breaks of 75, 68, 62, 53 and 123 sealed a thoroughly one-sided win in only 75 minutes for the world number three, who will play Liang Wenbo in the last four.

"I came here with a good mentality and so far I've played well," Murphy, who beat Jamie Cope 5-0 in the last round, said on www.worldsnooker.com.

"I've played tight, not given away chances and scored well when I've been in the balls. My next match is sure to be difficult but hopefully I'll keep winning."

Former world champion Doherty, who racked up only 49 points in the match, said: "If Shaun keeps playing like that he'll be hard to stop.

"I've only been whitewashed a handful of times in my career and I don't remember being beaten as well as I was today. When he got in, he finished the frames off with one chance.

"I've had a decent run here and won some good matches. Hopefully I'm out of my slump now. Despite today's result I've got more optimism and more confidence. It's something to build on for the rest of the season."

Defending champion Ricky Walden's hopes of retaining his title are over, though, after he went down 5-3 to Liang of China.

Walden knocked in a break of 103 to make it 1-1 and a 122 total clearance to make it 4-3, but Liang held his nerve to progress into his first ranking event semi-final.

"I am very happy to win the game, I felt relaxed during the match," said Liang.

Looking ahead to his last-four clash with Murphy, he added: "Murphy is a very good player. I will have to pay more attention to my safety."

The remaining two quarter-finals take place this afternoon, with Ding Junhui taking on Ronnie O'Sullivan and world champion John Higgins playing Ryan Day.