ALAIN ROBIDOUX converted his third consecutive appearance in a world ranking quarter final into a place in tomorrow's semi finals of the German Open by heating the world number 11, Dave Harold, 5-4 at the British military base at Osnabruck.

Canada's number one did well to recover from two mid match setbacks. One failure at an easy red when 34 front in the fourth and another when 65 ahead in the fifth led to Harold clearances of 95 and 74 respectively as he fell 3-2 adrift.

At 4-4, 38-0, something similar loomed. "He potted a great long, red", said Robidoux "and he'd been scoring so heavily I thought I might not get another chance." Harold, though, snatched at a middle pocket pink on 25 to let Robidoux in for the clinching 38.