Mark Williams and Ding Junhui were among those to complete the line-up for the last 16 in the 2018 Six Red World Championship after victories on Wednesday in Bangkok.
The pair, who between them have emerged with the trophy in each of the last two editions in Thailand, maintained their 100% records with triumphs over Ricky Walden and Jimmy Robertson respectively.
Williams, who won the title twelve months ago before going on to claim four ranking event trophies including the big one at the Crucible in Sheffield, will face Mohammed Shehab in the first round of the knockout phase.
UAE’s Shehab stunned World Open runner-up David Gilbert 5-4 in the last round-robin fixture of Group H to become the only amateur to advance beyond the group stages.
Ding, the 2016 winner, needed to beat Robertson to guarantee his progress despite having already notched up two wins from two in his previous ties and duly did so with a 5-3 defeat of the Englishman.
That allowed Akani Songsermsawad to take second place in Group E behind the Chinese number one, with the former representing one of only two of the home hopefuls to stay in the hunt for glory this week.
The other is veteran James Wattana, a three-time ranking event winner, who finished runner-up to Stuart Bingham in Group C after a 5-2 win against Shachar Ruberg.
In Group A, Tom Ford took advantage of six red specialist Walden’s loss to the reigning champion by hammering Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 5-1, setting up a contest with world number one Mark Selby.
Elsewhere, Luca Brecel and Marco Fu prevailed in the tightest group of the eight, edging out Noppon Saengkham on frame difference despite the fact that the trio had all won a couple of matches each over the first three days.
In Group F, Zhou Yuelong overcame Michael Holt 5-2 in a winner-took-all affair that sent the latter packing after the opening hurdle.
Zhou took first place in the group ahead of Anthony McGill, who along with Stephen Maguire, Ryan Day, Kyren Wilson, and Graeme Dott had all already booked their spots in the knockouts.
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