Judd Trump suffered an unbelievable whitewash defeat at the hands of Michael Wild on the final day of International Championship qualifying in Barnsley.
The 2012 champion was among the favourites to not only reach Daqing, but contend the latter stages of the tournament as well.
Trump has been arguably the best player in 2015 and recently reached the final of the Shanghai Masters but fellow Englishman Wild took advantage of a sloppy display to record an incredible 6-0 victory over the former world no.1.
It represents easily the biggest shock of the week and sponsors will no doubt be ruing the fact that one of the sport’s biggest stars wont now be in their tournament.
That’s to take nothing away from Wild, though, who hammered his opponent despite being ranked more than 100 spots below him in the world rankings.
It wasn’t the only upset on Saturday as Welsh veteran Lee Walker prevailed in a contrasting 6-5 contest with Mark Davis – winning the final three frames and the decider dramatically on the black.
Aside from those two results the remainder of the ties mostly went true to form, although Chinese teenage amateur Zhao Xintong inflicted a whitewash of his own on a hapless Stuart Carrington.
Former world champions John Higgins and Ken Doherty booked their places in China later this month with victories over Ashley Hugill and Vinnie Calabrese respectively, but Jimmy White suffered a 6-3 loss at the hands of Rod Lawler.
Irish amateur Leo Fernandez received an invite to make up the numbers off the back of his strong performances in Q-School but his run ended before it really began after a 6-3 defeat to Ben Woollaston.
India’s Aditya Mehta secured a much-needed victory as he attempts to halt the slide down the rankings resulting from his earnings from reaching the 2013 Indian Open final coming off his tally.
Joe Perry and Matthew Selt comfortably advanced, as did Kurt Maflin, Robbie Williams and China’s Yu Delu – who will surely be delighted at the prospect of featuring in one of his home events.
Finally, Jamie Jones beat Thanawat Tirapongpaiboon 6-4 while Mike Dunn progressed with a 6-3 triumph over Mitchell Mann.
The main event starts on October 25th.