World no.1 Mark Selby and former world champion Mark Williams will meet in the fourth round of the Ruhr Open after emerging from their opening three bouts unscathed in Germany.
Neither had it all their own way, though, with Selby needing a brace of deciding frame victories to seal the last 16 berth, while the latter was also taken the distance by Rod Lawler in the second round.
Selby gained a tiny portion of revenge over Anthony McGill for his 2015 Crucible defeat as the defending world champion with a 4-3 victory on Friday, which followed a similar scoreline success over Robbie Williams earlier in the day.
Williams and Selby are the only top 16 players to have made it through from the top half of the draw to Sunday’s showdown as the likes of Judd Trump, Ali Carter and Marco Fu were sent packing prematurely.
The day started off well for Irishman Fergal O’Brien as he ousted world champion Stuart Bingham in a final black ball thriller, but then squandered a 3-0 advantage over Mark Davis in the subsequent round to end his run in disappointing fashion.
Davis went on to overcome Paul Hunter Classic winner Carter 4-2 and he’ll take on Luca Brecel for a quarter-final place after the Belgian compiled a 140 en route to a 4-1 triumph over Zhang Anda.
Elsewhere, the other four players who advanced were all Englishmen as Ben Woollaston, Andrew Higginson, Mike Dunn and Rory McLeod ensured that they would be in the mix to collect some silverware.
Also up for grabs for the winner is a potential place in the lucrative Champion of Champions invitational event which takes place next month.
On Saturday the remainder of the field gets whittled down as the last 16 line-up becomes complete.
Ken Doherty, David Morris, Brendan O’Donoghue and Josh Boileau will all be hoping to add to what is already a big weekend for Irish sport.
