Shaun Murphy. Picture by Monique Limbos

SHAUN MURPHY cruised his way into Sunday’s Masters grand final after he won six frames on the bounce to beat Mark Allen.

The Englishman, just like he did in his quarter-final match against Stephen Maguire, recovered from a slow start to beat the Ulsterman 6-2 and reach his second Masters final.

And Murphy, who has already won two European Tour titles this season, will hope to win his biggest title in years facing the man he lost to in his first Masters final in 2012 – Neil Robertson. The Australian thrashed Ronnie O’Sullivan earlier in the day to book his place in Sunday’s £200,000 best-of-19 showdown.

Winning the event will see Murphy join a list of nine snooker greats to have won the sport’s three Triple Crown events – The Masters, UK Championship and the World Championship.

But from the start it looked like a different story was on the cards as Allen, looking to reach his first Masters final, made most of an unsettling start from Murphy as breaks of 83 and 62 put him in early command.

But Murphy, who is enjoying one of his most successful spells in the game for some time, dominated the match from then on in as a break of 42 got him back into the match before a run of 80 levelled the scores at the interval.

Murphy continued his dominance after the restart as breaks of 83, 76 and a 102 put him on the verge of the winning line.

And a relentless Murphy refused a way back in the match for Allen as a break of 60 in frame eight proved enough to clinch the win.