Jordan Brown safely qualified for his home event – the Northern Ireland Open in Belfast – after a 4-0 victory over Andrew Pagett on Wednesday.
The former Welsh Open champion compiled breaks of 95 and 52 as he easily outplayed Pagett to record a whitewash win.
The Northern Irishman will now definitely participate at the venue stages of the ranking event in October.
Hossein Vafaei and Dominic Dale were other comprehensive winners on day two of the preliminaries in Wigan.
The Iranian, who missed last week’s European Masters in Germany due to visa issues, ousted Mark Davis with contributions of 134 and 76.
Veteran Welshman Dale, meanwhile, tallied three half-century breaks in a mostly routine 4-0 beating of Rebecca Kenna.
Graeme Dott was the day’s biggest casualty with the former world champion suffering a 4-3 reverse to Craig Steadman.
Dott couldn’t find his scoring boots but established a 3-2 lead, only for Steadman to take the last two for a deciding-frame success.
Elsewhere, talented young Chinese duo Fan Zhengyi and Si Jiahui enjoyed contrasting victories at the Robin Park Leisure Centre.
Fan won a match for the first time this season with a 4-0 defeat of Ashley Hugill, while Si needed all seven frames to get over the line against Anton Kazakov.
Andy Hicks and John Astley were the other players to advance to the last 64 after respective triumphs against Zhang Anda and Wu Yize.
On Thursday, the action continues with a blockbuster tie between Ding Junhui and Ali Carter the highlight.
Wednesday’s results
Hossein Vafaei 4-0 Mark Davis
Graeme Dott 3-4 Craig Steadman
Andy Hicks 4-1 Zhang Anda
Fan Zhengyi 4-0 Ashley Hugill
Wu Yize 3-4 John Astley
Si Jiahui 4-3 Anton Kazakov
Jordan Brown 4-0 Andrew Pagett
Dominic Dale 4-0 Rebecca Kenna
Thursday’s order of play
Lu Ning vs Jak Jones (10am)
Yuan Sijun vs Jimmy White (10am)
Ali Carter vs Ding Junhui (1pm)
Scott Donaldson vs Alfie Burden (1pm)
Michael White vs Liam Highfield (4pm)
Louis Heathcote vs Dean Young (4pm)
Mark Joyce vs Alexander Ursenbacher (7pm)
Tom Ford vs Sanderson Lam (7pm)
Live coverage of the Northern Ireland Open qualifiers is on Matchroom.Live and the Eurosport App.
Featured photo credit: WST