Shaun Murphy complied a 147 maximum break in his 4-1 victory over Daniel Wells at the Welsh Open, in the process booking his place in the quarter-finals.
Murphy has produced some of his best snooker of the season this week, passing 600 career centuries in the process, and his seventh professional maximum capped another impressive display.
The 2020 champion had already eased into a 2-0 lead thanks to breaks of 66 and a total clearance of 145, before achieving snooker perfection in the very next frame.
A tricky cut to middle on the final pink ensured there were some late nerves, but Murphy confidently floated in the pot and made no mistake on the black.
To his credit, Wells took the fourth frame with a run of 89, but Murphy wasn't for stopping and a break of 78 set up a last-eight meeting with Yuan Sijun who claimed the notable scalp of Jack Lisowski by winning 4-1.
“I felt something good was coming for sometime, and it all came at once,” Murphy told Eurosport.
“The thing that was so pleasing with the 147 was I tried to make it from the very first red.
“Very briefly I felt like Neo from the Matrix – I was just seeing green lines everywhere, but that is what the hours of practice are for, that when you get the chance (of a 147) to keep it going.
“It’s just your alignment clicks, your sighting clicks, your striking clicks and all the balls go in. Sometimes it is easy, but most of the time it is really hard.”
World number one Ronnie O’Sullivan had little trouble in dispatching Belgian 18-year-old Ben Mertens 4-0, scoring three half-centuries, while Welshman Jak Jones lost 4-2 against Pang Junxu of China.
Elsewhere in Thursday’s evening session at Venue Cymru, world number 12 Jack Lisowski suffered an unexpected 4-1 defeat to China’s Yuan Sijun.
Joe O’Connor, though, is safely through to the quarter-finals after he coasted past Robbie Williams without dropping a frame.
