Stephen Hendry slumped to a stunning 6-2 defeat at the Rileys Club Masters at Wembley tonight as fellow Scot John Higgins marched into the last four.
Hendry has been the player of the new year with a Malta Cup victory and a Welsh Open final to his name.
But the seven-times world champion turned in a performance to rival his shock first-round exit to Barry Hawkins at the UK Championship last November.
"I don't know where that came from," admitted Hendry who won the last of his six Masters crowns in 1996. "You are going to have days when you don't play well. You would be a robot if you didn't."
"But my head wasn't right from the word go and I played dreadfully. I missed a black off the spot in the fifth frame that I haven't missed for a month. At that point I just lost the plot."
Hendry had led 47-0 in that frame and eventually fell 4-1 down as Higgins made three scoring visits to recover the deficit.
Higgins also captured frame six as well before Hendry plucked a century break from thin air.
It was not the prelude to a famous comeback or a collapse of similar proportions that befell Higgins against Graeme Dott in the recent Malta Cup.
Higgins notched a break of 62 at the start of the eighth and while there were still enough points available for Hendry, he was playing too poorly to take advantage.
"I couldn't believe how many shots Stephen was missing," said British Open champion Higgins. "I got myself geared up to play in a really tough match. And while I thought I played well, Stephen just never got started."
"But I will take that any day. It just shows you the ups and downs you can have in this game."
Higgins now meets Peter Ebdon in Saturday's first semi-final and victory then will mean he misses Sunday's Old Firm game.
"I won't bother about that if I get through," said Celtic fan Higgins. "But it will be a tough game against Peter. He's obviously playing well this week and I haven't got that good a record against him."
