LONDON - Ronnie O'Sullivan set a new record for career centuries with his 776th as he breezed past Marco Fu 6-1 to reach the semifinals of the snooker Masters at the Alexandra Palace here on Thursday.

The defending champion, who equalled Stephen Hendry's record of 775 career tons in his first round win over Ricky Walden, achieved a break of 101 in the opening frame to put the record under his name.

The Rockets needed just 104 minutes to beat Fu, from Hong Kong, China, and set up a semifinal showdown against world No. 1 Neil Robertson, who thrashed Ali Carter 6-1 in the day's other games.

"It's a nice record to have," said O'Sullivan. "I'm glad it was out of the way early today so I could focus on playing and winning the tournament. It has taken me 21 years to do it so it was nice to have a couple of minutes of clapping, but I didn't want it to over-shadow what we were there to do, which was to play a match. To get to 1,000 centuries is definitely achievable and worth going for.

"I was pleased with my attitude today, I played every ball as if it counted, from start to finish. Even at 5-1 I wasn't thinking it was over because Marco can win three or four frames in a row. Nicking the close frames can be more important than making big breaks, so it was massive to win the fourth and be 3-1 up at the interval."