Four seeds, including local favourite Ding Junhui, were knocked out on the second day of last 32 action at the Shanghai Masters.
Ding lost a war of attrition with Dave Harold 5-3, while Peter Ebdon, Shaun Murphy and Ali Carter also all fell on an afternoon of shocks.
The form book held up in the evening session however, as seeds Ryan Day, Stephen Maguire and Marco Fu all progressed.
Harold, who reached the final of the Northern Ireland trophy already this season, just outslugged Ding in messy match that lacked real quality.
There were only three half-centuries in the match, but Harold produced the best break of the contest, a 75 effort, in the final frame to clinch his place in the next round after he had missed chances to take it the frame before.
The Stoke native will now play six-time world champion Steve Davis in the last 16.
Two-time world champion Mark Williams was the unseeded player in his match against last year's world championship finalist Carter and found himself 2-1 down early in the match.
However, he then rattled off four frames in a row to clinch victory, with an 86 in the penultimate frame representing his best break.
Stuart Bingham also had to come from behind in his match against Ebdon, as he trailed 3-2 at one stage.
He got himself back on level terms with a break of 103 and then closed out the match by winning two more frames in succession with a break of 75 in the final frame icing the match.
Ebdon had produced a 114 break in the second frame but he could never recapture that form.
"I played pretty well," said Bingham.
"Any result against Peter Ebdon, a former world champion, is a great result. I was 3-2 down then made a 100 and took confidence from that."
Meanwhile, 2005 world champion Murphy never got going in his match against Andy Hicks and paid the price with a crushing 5-1 defeat.
Hicks was in fine form throughout though with breaks of 127, 71, 57, 51, and 47 helping to guide him into the next round.
Murphy said after: "If you watched the match it speaks for itself. Andy played very well and I didn't. It's not complicated."
In the evening session, Fu took awhile to get going in his match against Anthony Hamilton but he managed to come back from 0-2 down to win the match 5-2 without ever reaching top gear.
Fu finished the match strongly but will still need to play better to dismiss Hicks who he plays next.
Similarly, world number two Maguire will be happy after progressing 5-3 over Barry Hawkins but again he will know he needs to improve if he is to challenge this week.
He saw a few too many breaks end with poor misses against Hawkins but luckily for him his opponent was suffering from a similar aliment.
"I was anxious to get over the line so I was relieved to get there in the end," said Maguire, who sunk breaks of 65, 71 and 40 in the match.
"I enjoy playing in China because it's always a good atmosphere," he continued. "Obviously, I won the tournament in Beijing last season so to repeat that and do the double would be fantastic."
One man who had no problem progressing though was Welshman Ryan Day, as he wrapped up a comfortable 5-0 demolition over local player Liang Wenbo in no time at all.
His last 16 tie with John Higgins will provide a much sterner test.
Jamie Cope received a bye when Graeme Dott was forced to withdraw with a broken arm. Cope faces Williams next.
Source
No comments:
Post a Comment