Ken Doherty came from 4-0 behind to beat teenager Sam Craigie in outstanding fashion and progress to the final stage of the German Masters next February.
17 year-old Craigie showed no fear in going into an apparently insurmountable lead at the interval but felt the pressure when the former world champion made his comeback in the second half of the match.
A 135 break to make it 4-3 ensured that his young English opponent knew what he had to deal with and Irishman Doherty completed the comeback late on in a nervy decider to oversee the turnaround.
It is a harsh lesson for youngster Craigie but one that will surely stand him in good stead in the future as he bids to break into the higher echelons of the game.
In a battle of two other veterans, Peter Ebdon edged former world number two Jimmy White 5-4 in a tight encounter.
Ebdon has had a terrible season so far and this result will go a long way in proving that he is not a spent force just yet – ‘Force’ being his appropriate nickname of recent years.
For the ‘Whirlwind’, though, it makes for a treble of final frame defeats in November and, although he is approaching better form, the Londoner has quite clearly missed out on some opportunities in the last month to rise up the rankings.
Elsewhere, Chinese duo Yu Delu and Liu Song made it through to the main event in Berlin – the latter with a hard-fought victory over Dubliner Fergal O’Brien.
Former world number three James Wattana hammered Stephen Hendry 5-1 in a battle of the 1990s stars of the sport while 147 hero Mike Dunn completed his excellent week with a 5-3 defeat of Mark King.
Adrian Gunnell qualified for his second successive ranking event tournament with a 5-1 win over Marco Fu and there were wins also for Joe Perry, Andrew Higginson and Marcus Campbell.
In one of the biggest shocks of the week, lowly ranked Englishman Paul Davison knocked out Dominic Dale 5-4 – the same result Welshman Ryan Day saw off talented Anthony McGill.
Mark Davis inflicted a second consecutive loss on 20 year-old Micheal White after the Englishman inflicted a similar defeat on the young Welshman at the recent UK Championship qualifiers.
Finally, Ricky Walden, Tom Ford and Barry Hawkins made it through to Germany with contrasting triumphs over Liu Chuang, Anthony Hamilton and Andy Hicks respectively.
