World number one Mark Selby was a relieved man as he secured a narrow 4-3 win against battling Chinese opponent Mei Xiwen in their European Masters qualifying round on Friday.

The 35-year-old Englishman came into his qualifier at the Guild Hall in Preston on the back of a disappointing 5-4 defeat against Thailand’s Noppon Saengkham in the World Open earlier this month.

However, three-time European masters champion, Selby, showed no signs of any hangover as he started well with a break of 118 and looked on course for a routine win.But Xiwen refused to go quietly and it required another ton break of 102 in the seventh frame for Selby to finally shake him off and seal his place in the European Masters in Lommel, Belgium in October.

Selby’s compatriot David Gilbert continued to show his bouncebackability after last week’s disappointing World Open final defeat against Mark Williams as he followed up his midweek Indian Open preliminaries win against Niu Zhuang with a hard-fought 4-3 victory against Robbie Williams.

Australia’s Neil Robertson, who won his second Riga Masters title in July, was another player who was made to work hard for his place in the European Masters with the 36-year-old taken to seven frames by Welshman Dominic Dale.

Other notable names to progress to the last-64 on Friday included four-time world champion John Higgins, who secured a 4-0 whitewash win against Chen Feilong, while former ranking event winners Joe Perry and Anthony Hamilton also sealed 4-0 wins against Sean O’Sullivan and Robin Hull respectively.

The legendary Jimmy White was no match for Shootout winner champion Michael Georgiou with the Cypriot easing to a 4-1 win in their encounter.The second half of the field continues on Saturday with sixth seed Barry Hawkins 1.05 to see off the challenge of fellow Englishman lam Sanderson, who is 7.50 to pull off a shock win.