Phil Robertson turned the Argo Group Gold Cup on its head in Hamilton Harbour yesterday.The 24-year-old Kiwi dumped current World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) points-leader and past Gold Cup winner Ian Williams out of the $100,000 regatta on the back of some awesome sailing.Robertson advanced to today’s semi-finals after beating Williams 3-0 in yesterday’s quarter-finals contested in blustery and shifty conditions that kept skippers guessing.The New Zealander, who is ranked seventh in the world, read the shifts far better than his English rival thanks in no small part to lessons learned the previous day.“We learned pretty fast how to get the boat going fast in these conditions where it’s really puffy and big shifts hitting the boat for ten seconds and then shifting back,” Robertson said.Two-time world champion and 2006 Gold Cup winner Williams took defeat in stride.“Certainly we didn’t sail that great and credit to Phil because he sailed a great quarter-final and fully deserved to win,” he said.“I think they had a much better grip of the breeze, the shifts and how to keep the boat fast in those conditions and all credit to them.”Williams praised his fellow Team GAC Pindar crewmates for getting the team to the last eight before turning his attention to next month’s season-ending Monsoon Cup in Malaysia, where he could potentially clinch a third WMRT championship.“We will move onto the Monsoon Cup and hopefully get some momentum back there,” he said. “Thanks to my team, they did a great job this week.”Also advancing to today’s semi-finals was Sweden’s Johnie Berntsson who beat Finland’s Staffan Lindberg 3-1.Berntsson sailed as many as 10 races yesterday and reached the last eight after advancing from a fiercely contested Repechage.Joining Robertson and Berntsson in the semis is Aussie Torvar Mirsky who got past 2002 Gold Cup winner Jesper Radich of Denmark 3-0.The remaining quarter-final match-up between 2007 Gold Cup winner Mathieu Richard (France) and Italy’s Francesco Bruni has yet to be completed.Bruni leads the series 2-1 and is just one win away from advancing to the last four in the regatta.Like Berntsson, Bruni also competed in the Repechage. It was a long day on the water that did not go without incident as he was knocked overboard in the second quarter-final match with Richard after being struck in the head by a swinging boom.Fortunately, he escaped serious injury but didn’t take too kindly to his mishap being posted on Youtube.“I heard the video is already on Youtube and I’m not very happy about this,” he complained.That Bruni was not thrown well clear of his IOD sloop was nothing short of miraculous.“I was lucky enough to get a hand to the spinnaker sheet,” he said. “It was just a reaction.“But I have to thank my guys because they were great today. We did a lot of racing and spent many hours in the water.“The guys onboard did a fantastic job to sail the boat fast and point me in the right direction, so definitely well done to my team and we are very happy.”Bruni, who is thick in the hunt for this year’s WMRT championship, will now look to close out his quarter-final series with Richard when racing resumes today.“We will just take it as it comes and see what we get tomorrow morning,” he said.Fighting off the ropes is Richard, who sailed well in yesterday’s strong northerly breezes but might have felt hard done for having a point deducted for colliding with Bruni in the second match.“Unfortunately we beat Francesco twice but had a one point deduction for contact. The umpires decided that I could’ve avoided the contact,” he said.“It’s a bit disappointing but we are still in. It’s 2-1 and so we know what we have to do tomorrow. We know we have to win the next two matches.”