Roewe Shanghai Masters - Day Four - Bell rings on Ding

Dreams of the Shanghai Masters gaining its first ever homegrown champion came crashing to an end as Ding Junhui was resoundly beaten 5-1 by OnCues's dark horse tip, Jamie Cope.

The Chinese star rode his luck yesterday in round one coming back from 4-1 down to eventually stumble past wildcard compatriot Jin Long in a deciding frame shoot-out.

No disrespect, but against such weak opposition, this result was a false dawn that Ding was ready to stake a real claim on winning silverware this season.

The world number five is still desperately lacking in match practice. We saw evidence of this when he was beaten so comfortably by the same scoreline to Shaun Murphy in the Premier League.

And against a razor sharp Cope, Ding had no answer.

The Chinese cueman had an impressive season last time, reaching three ranking finals, and winning the UK Championship. This lifted him from a player tinkering towards the bottom of the top 16, to one of sport's leading lights.

He'd have been hoping to push on even further this year, but has had a far from ideal start, despite being one of the competition's firm favourites.

Ding wasn't the only one of the bookmakers top guns to be eliminated today.

Murphy come unstuck 5-2 against Welshman Matthew Stevens, who is enjoying a period of renaissance in his career at the moment.

The former giant put in the performance of the championship so far to reach the last eight.

This year's world championship runner-up Graeme Dott put in a stirring display too. He grafted for his life to beat Mark Williams 5-4 and deny him a seventh title in Asia.

These results have pathed the way for Mark Selby, who is now firmly installed as the man to beat.

His passage to the quarter-finals wasn't without a scrap though as he came up against a tenacious and confident Graham Gould.

The Jester from Leicester ran out a narrow 5-4 winner.

Drained from yesterday's triumph against world champion Neil Robertson, Peter Ebdon lost 5-3 to Mark King, and Jamie Burnett made lightwork of Andrew Higginson to whitewash his way through to the next round.

Another corker was the battle of Essex.

In a free flowing game, Ali Carter beat Stuart Bingham 5-3. A number of fans are now sounding out Carter as the man most likely to beat Selby.

And finally, Mark Davis continued to emerge as a player to fear. He recovered from 2-1 down to knock out another front runner, Stephen Maguire.

Quarter-final draw:

Jamie Burnett v Mark Davis
Graeme Dott v Jamie Cope
Ali Carter v Matthew Stevens
Mark Selby v Mark King