It ends a run of nine match victories in a row on the Main Tour for the Northern Irishman.
Mark Allen crashed out of the European Masters in the qualification round after losing 5-4 to Sunny Akani on Saturday at the Chase Leisure Centre.
Allen had been in a rich vein of form recently, triumphing in his home event of the Northern Ireland Open earlier in October and even beating Akani during last week’s German Masters preliminaries to safeguard his place in Berlin.
However, the Thai gained his revenge by outgunning the Pistol in a high-scoring affair that featured eight significant contributions between them.
Allen was joined on the sidelines by former European Masters champion Jimmy Robertson, whose return to form this season hit a stumbling block, albeit against a tough opponent.
Robertson led David Gilbert 3-0 and 4-2 but ended up on the losing side of a deciding-frame thriller as the latter reeled off three late breaks of 104, 63, and 56 to progress.
Elsewhere, Anthony McGill and Matthew Stevens secured heavy victories to guarantee their involvement at the venue stages of the ranking event in Furth in February.
The pair respectively thrashed Oliver Lines and Zak Surety with a 5-0 scoreline that was matched by Noppon Saengkham in his demolition of amateur top-up Si Jiahui.
Meanwhile, it was disappointment again for Stephen Hendry fans with the seven-time world champion coming up short in a 5-3 reverse against Li Hang.
Hendry has only won three matches since returning to the professional circuit more than a year ago, although the Scot will feature in next week’s English Open at the Marshall Arena.
Among the others to qualify for the European Masters were Tom Ford, Jamie Clarke, Sean Maddocks, Pang Junxu, Zhang Jiankang, and Duane Jones.
On Sunday, this long batch of qualifiers finally concludes with the likes of Ryan Day and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh entering the fold.
Live coverage of the European Masters qualifiers is available on the Eurosport Player and Matchroom.Live.
Click here to view the draw (Times: CET)
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It’s been remarkable how well Sunny Akani has been playing, considering his ongoing health problems. He was magnificent last night. He’s successfully managed to win all his first round matches in the recent series of qualifiers. These £3000 increments should ensure he isn’t in danger of relegation at the end of the season. His compatriots, Noppon Saengkham and Thepchaiya Un-nooh, are still in danger, both placed outside the top-64 on the provisional end-of-season rankings. It hasn’t been easy for the overseas players during covid times.