Fergal O’Brien was dumped out of the Shanghai Masters qualifiers following a 5-0 drubbing from Jamie Jones in Barnsley on Thursday.

Jones dominated the Irishman from the outset, and rounded off the impressive victory with a 102 century break.

His fellow Welshman Matthew Stevens joined him in the last round of qualifying after a 5-3 defeat of Martin O’Donnell while Q-School graduate Ian Preece continued his run from the first qualifying round on Tuesday with a 5-2 triumph over Chris Wakelin.

Preece will face David Gilbert with the prospect of reaching the main event in China very much now on the cards.

Meanwhile, the (dis)honour for most careless act of the season has already gone to Xiao Goudong, who wont get the chance of returning home for this event after failing to show up for his encounter with Jimmy Robertson.

Xiao, somewhat unbelievably, thought that his match was to be played during a different session.

Countrymen Li Hang and Zhao Xintong also crashed out – but at least they competed – with the latter losing a thriller to Jack Lisowski 5-4.

In a match that boasted seven breaks above 58, Lisowski stole the penultimate frame before snatching the decider with a run of 59.

It was a better outing for both Zhang Anda and rookie Mei Xiwen, who each progressed to the fourth round with 5-1 wins over Dechawat Poomjaeng and Dominic Dale respectively.

Elsewhere, former World Championship runner-up Nigel Bond continued his resurgence this season with a 5-2 win, while other stalwarts Mark King and Paul Davison advanced too.

Norway’s Kurt Maflin arguably had the win of the day as he knocked in five breaks above 50 in a whitewash rout of Rod Lawler.

Stuart Carrington, Scott Donaldson, Hammad Miah, Andrew Higginson and Adam Duffy will all also feature in the final round of qualifying on Friday in which the players ranked between 17 and 32 enter the fray.

Click here to view the draw.