Jimmy White held on to record a terrific victory over Anthony McGill in the first qualifying round of the German Masters in Barnsley on Wednesday.
The 55 year-old, who also triumphed over Ali Carter in the UK Championship, earned another top 16 scalp to move to within one win of repeating his trip to the Tempodrom from last year.
In a mostly scrappy and low scoring affair, White knocked in a break of 67 en route to sealing a 4-1 advantage before seeing his opponent fight back to within one frame of a decider.
The “Whirlwind” managed to hold his nerve and progress in the eighth frame, though, to set up a clash against Yu Delu on Thursday.
Ken Doherty, who alongside White received a Main Tour invitation to compete on the circuit this season despite having fallen off it at the end of the last term, was another 5-3 winner after repeating the scoreline against Alexander Ursenbacher.
Doherty has a tougher task on paper if he’s to reach the venue stages in Berlin as he takes on former champion Martin Gould in the second and final qualifying round.
Meanwhile, Kyren Wilson became another high-profile casualty as he bowed out to the fast-improving Jack Lisowski in a 5-1 drubbing.
Lisowski, a semi-finalist in the Shanghai Masters, continued his streak of strong scoring by knocking in breaks of 70, 62, 59, 54, 51, and 50 to comprehensively see off the World and English Opens runner-up.
The majority of the other marquee names emerged unscathed from their opening obstacles.
Shaun Murphy beat Paul Davison 5-2 while Mark Allen, who impressively compiled a hat-trick of centuries, required one extra frame in dispatching of Li Yuan.
Barry Hawkins, who has struggled for much of this season, easily ousted Jamie Curtis-Barret while Ricky Walden and Ryan Day also impressed with one-sided triumphs over Boonyarit Kaettikun and Kurt Dunham respectively.
Cao Yupeng bounced back from his agonising defeat to Neil Robertson in last week’s Scottish Open final with a 5-2 defeat of Chen Zifan, although Chen did manage a superb 140 as consolation that currently stands as the highest break of the week so far.
However, it was surely a sense of bitter disappointment for Germany’s Lukas Kleckers, who failed in his quest to reach his home event with a 5-2 reverse against Tom Ford.
Elsewhere, David Gilbert overcame Tian Pengfei 5-3 while there were wins too for fellow Englishmen Mark Davis, Mike Dunn, and rookie Ashley Hugill – who accounted for Ireland’s Leo Fernandez.
One of the standout scorelines of the day saw Welsh amateur Jackson Page, no stranger to making headlines, compile breaks of 104, 86, and 73 in beating Sean O’Sullivan.
The teenager will face veteran Alan McManus next, with the Scot pipping Dominic Dale in a deciding frame thriller.
Among the others to advance were Michael Georgiou, Liam Highfield, and Rod Lawler.
The action on Thursday will be a combination of the climax to the first stage of preliminaries and the beginning of the last 64.
Neil Robertson, Judd Trump, and former finalist Luca Brecel are some of the heavy-hitters entering the fray.
Coverage continues on the Eurosport Player.
