Ronnie O’Sullivan remains the clear favourite to win the English Open title for the first time this week after he made it through to the semi-finals in comfortable style.

The Rocket beat this season’s in-form man Jack Lisowki 5-2 to secure a place in the last four of the tournament taking place at the Barnsley Metrodome.

The five-times world champion takes on Scotland’s Anthony McGill on Saturday night knowing he is just two wins away from winning his 29th career ranking title.

However it was Lisowski, fresh from knocking out Judd Trump in the last round, who made the better start to the quarter-final tie as a break of 128 saw him go 1-0 up in his first ever competitive match against O’Sullivan.

But O’Sullivan responded and then took the game away from his opponent as breaks of 64 and 125 helped him on his way to a 4-1 lead.

Lisowski managed to stop the rot in frame six with breaks of 66 and 61 but O’Sullivan wrapped up proceedings by dominating the next frame.

Next up for O’Sullivan will be McGill who showed great resilience to defeat Australian Neil Robertson in today’s first quarter-final.

Robertson led the Scot three times only for McGill, looking to win his third ranking event of his career, to peg him back immediately each time.

The world number 16 then took the lead for the first time in the match at a crucial point when he won a scrappy seventh frame which took more than an hour to complete.

And the next frame saw the former Indian Open winner clinch the match with a well made break of 86 under the greatest of pressure.

Defeat for Robertson means he is still waiting for his first ranking title since winning the Riga Masters in the summer of 2016. Though he did win the non-ranking Hong  Kong Masters at the start of this season.

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ENGLISH OPEN – SEMI-FINAL DRAW

Anthony McGill vs Ronnie O’Sullivan

Alexander Ursenbacher vs Kyren Wilson

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Earlier in the day, Alexander Ursenbacher reached his first major ranking semi-final after thrashing Michael White 5-0.

The talented young star from Switzerland will play former Shanghai Masters winner Kyren Wilson in Saturday’s first semi-final. Wilson beat Iranian Hossein Vafaei 5-3 in the second quarter-final contest of the day.