Judd Trump provides sting in the tail for Shaun Murphy

The 2015 champion spent five minutes trying to avoid the insects in a bizarre scene but he could not avoid being swatted aside by Trump, who progressed to the semi-finals with a 6-4 win.

The Alexandra Palace has been plagued by insects for much of the week with players often swatting away flies but 2015 champion Murphy had bigger problems on his hands and was not impressed after the match.

“I am terrified of wasps. Who isn’t? Who likes wasps? What are they for? Why are they here? Why are they in that room? I have no idea,” he said.

“It is one of the problems of playing in buildings like this with holes everywhere. There is wildlife in this building that perhaps should not be here.

“A lick of paint would not do this building any harm, a bit money spent on it would have that sealed up – we should not have things like that disrupting an indoor sport.”

Murphy will now focus on getting ready for April’s World Championship after he was outclassed by an imperious Trump.

The left-hander, who is attempting to reach his first Masters final, opened up a 4-2 lead before Murphy levelled the score.

But he finished with a flourish, scoring two centuries to book a last-four match with Kyren Wilson.

“I think in the end, it was similar to my first match. Shaun battled back against me but I got over the line,” Trump said.

“The start of the match was very scrappy, we did not play our game and we were very wary of each other but then after five or six frames it picked up and there was some good snooker.”

“There is a lot at stake. Sometimes when you get two attacking players people expect them to go for their shots but then the balls can go a little bit awkward and you don’t want to give anything away. I did well to get a lead at the interval and I did well to keep my head.”

John Higgins beat Ryan Day 6-1 in the other quarter-final.

Watch the London Masters LIVE on Eurosport and Eurosport Player with Colin Murray and analysis from Neil Robertson, Jimmy White and Neal Foulds.