In the early morning of January 9, Beijing time, the 2024 Snooker Masters continued. In a key game in the 1/8 finals, "China's first brother" Ding Junhui lost to "Rocket" Ronnie O'Sullivan 3-6, and he scored 147 points in a single stroke in the seventh game. In the other game, "Captain" Alister Carter led three-time world champion Mark Williams 4-3 after the end of the seventh inning.
The 2024 Snooker Masters is the second event of 2024. "Captain" Alister Carter's opponent in actual combat is the three-time world champion "Golden Left Hand" Mark Williams. The two have played each other a lot of times, with fewer wins and more losses. The most recent meeting between the two sides was in the 2021 Champions League, where Carter lost 1-3 to Williams.
Prior to the Masters, Carter had just competed in the second group of the invitational Champions League, where he was in the same group as four-time world champion Mark Selby, Chris Wakelin, who recently won the Northern Ireland Open, Kyren Wilson, Gary Wilson, Matthew Selt, and Ryan Day.
After the group round-robin, Carter was 4-2 to Selby, Kyren Wilson, and Wakelin with 4 wins and 2 losses, and was in third place with a relatively small score. In the round-robin match, there were some regrets in the match with Selby.
In the first two games of this semi-final, the opponent led 2-0 and won match point. In the third game, Carter, who had no way out, launched a tenacious counterattack, he scored 85 points in a single stroke, 85-0 clean Selby, and saved a match point 1-2.
In the fourth game, Selby never gave a chance again, and he scored 132 points in a single stroke, 132-0 clean Carter, and defeated the opponent with a total score of 3-1. In the group semifinals, Carter lost 0-3 to Selby and missed the group final. With a bit of regret in the Champions League, Carter challenged Williams in the first round of the Masters. At the end of the seventh game, he led his opponent 4-0 and won two more games from the top 8!