I'd love to say that I made the most of my two days off from Wembley, but I didn't.

The reason for this was the annoying uber-virus - a beast of an illness that has swept across the UK over the last few weeks.

That has kept me indoors for most of the 48 hours, although I did manage to recover enough to attend an in-house BBC quiz, where the Sport Interactive team came third out of about eight or so. Good effort methinks.

I'm pretty much over my illness now and by the way Shaun Murphy was playing I think he was over his.

The 2005 world champion had said the hangover from the Xmas/New Year had affected him against Ali Carter.

He looked at full strength against Ken Doherty, but caught the canny Irishman in a right royal bit of form. Ken's comeback was superb.

The 1997 world champion will now play last season's Crucible runner-up Mark Selby who surprised many by beating current world number two Stephen Maguire in Thursday's other quarter-final.

Is he still riding on the crest of last season's wave? I don't think so. The Jester has proven he is no Joe Dolce (a one-hit wonder).

So, on to Friday. First we have Stephen Lee v Peter Ebdon.
Potentially a slow one, but who knows. I don't think we'll see a repeat of Ebdon's shriek of delight against Lee, that we saw back in 2001 at the Crucible. I fancy Ebbo to get through here.

In the other match, Marco Fu faces Ding Junhui. Fu translated for Ding a few years ago when I interviewed the young prodigy. Now, young Ding has got a pretty decent grasp of the English language and his snooker has improved markedly too. The result? Fu has experience, but Ding is better.

I hope I don't need another packet of paracetamols today.