It came off as a bit strange when John Higgins went down early on. Interestingly, Mark Williams was being schooled by Michael White at the same time, giving off signs that there were a series of upsets lined up for the night.

However, Higgins didn’t let Lu Ning get his hopes so high, taking the next three frames forcefully to go 3-1 up after the first four frames. He made it a century in his first four frames, leaving him only three centuries behind legendary Stephen Hendry.

There was no shortage of quality on show as Higgins was ready to complete a demoralizing win in spectacular fashion. In his match-up with Lu Ning, the pot success remained over 90 percent. Sensational stuff! A stat you would only think possible in video games.

He might have lost the first frame, but four frames on the bounce would make the first frame loss easy to forget. With that win in the fifth frame, he is only two frames away from the third round. Leaving nothing to chance and not being a fan of dramatic comeback headlines against himself, Higgins took the last two frames.

He was definitely not at his best but did just enough to save himself from the fate Mark Mark Williams endured. He will be licking his lips at the prospect of playing Ian Burns in the next round being the lowest-ranked player in the last-32 of the tournament. An easy win on the list of cards for him? Only time will tell.

Elsewhere, Gary Wilson recovered from 3-0 down to Chris Wakelin to earn a spot in the next round. Chris Wakelin looked to be running away with a daunting victory over the World No. 18 – even taking another win in the fourth frame – but Wilson prevailed in the end.

Gary Wilson stopped Wakelin in the tracks with six straight wins to finish it off at 6-4. Incredible! He made this unspeakable comeback with successive breaks of 67, 97, 134, 114, 100 and 124, pulling up four successive centuries in the process. He is only the fourth player after Shawn Murphy, John Higgins and Neil Robertson to record four centuries on the bounce.

Roland Arum