The last-32 fixture completely changed after the mid-session interval.
Barry Hawkins produced one of the comebacks of the season so far to beat Ryan Day 5-4 in the German Masters on Wednesday at the Marshall Arena.
In a battle between two former top-16 members who have both suffered significant slides down the rankings pecking order of late, Day appeared to be in cruise control when he won the opening four frames of the contest.
At that point, his opponent had only scored 43 points but all of that was to change upon the resumption of play after the interval.
Hawkins avoided the whitewash with a break of 55 and built on his momentum in the following frame thanks to an additional contribution of 82.
The rest of the encounter was scrappy, but Hawkins won all three remaining frames to keep his German Masters aspirations for 2021 alive.
The 41 year-old will face Jak Jones in the second round after the latter also prevailed in a deciding-frame thriller against Liang Wenbo.
Meanwhile, world number one Judd Trump returned to action for the first time since a positive COVID-19 test forced his withdrawal from the Masters.
The defending German Masters champion didn’t waste much time as he tallied runs of 78, 68, 57, and 52 to see off the challenge of Mark Davis 5-1.
Trump will face Joe Perry for a quarter-final berth after his fellow Englishman repeated the same scoreline against Duane Jones.
There were two notable upsets elsewhere in the top half of the draw, with Shaun Murphy and Stephen Maguire both crashing out in final-frame shoot outs.
Murphy’s absent long game proved costly as he suffered a 5-4 reverse against Jamie O’Neill, who in turn reaches the last 16 of a ranking event for only the third time in his career.
In a draw that has opened up considerably for a lot of lower-ranked competitors, O’Neill will next take on Jordan Brown after the Northern Irishman upset 2018 runner-up Graeme Dott 5-2.
For Maguire, the Tour Championship winner lost the last two frames as veteran Dominic Dale inflicted another disappointing defeat on the inconsistent Scot.
Dale’s reward is a meeting with Ding Junhui after the 2014 champion fought back from behind to deny Kacper Filipiak in another decider.
It was much easier for Tom Ford, who is the highest-ranked contender in the third quarter of the draw and proved as much with a dominant 5-0 thrashing of Yuan Sijun.
Ford, who will be fancied to at least reach the last four following the withdrawal of John Higgins in that section, reeled off breaks of 132, 131, 79, 66, and 54 in an impressive display.
The Englishman will entertain Joe O’Connor next after his countryman overcame Mark Joyce late on the first day in a sixth 5-4 thriller.
Ireland’s Fergal O’Brien was the other winner on day one after hustling his way past Michael White.
On Thursday, the first round will conclude with Stuart Bingham and Jack Lisowski among those joining the fray.
The evening session will subsequently see the second round begin as well, with Trump and Ding returning in an attempt to safely reach the quarter-finals.
This year’s German Masters is being played away from its usual home of the Tempodrom in Berlin as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
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Click here to view the draw (Times in CET)
