Ryan Day and Neil Robertson both cruised into the second round of the World Snooker World Championship on day five at the Embassy but former champion Shaun Murphy was given an almighty scare before progressing.
Welshman Day sailed through courtesy of a facile 10-4 rout of England’s Stephen Lee.
Truth be told, it was a poor quality game which featured just two breaks of over 50, with Day accounting for both of them [65 and 86].
Robertson, meanwhile, was far more impressive in his 10-2 demolition of veteran Steve Davis.
Aussie Robertson was always in complete command and the highlight of his performance was a fine 125 in what proved the penultimate frame of a one-sided match.
”I was pleased overall how I played, but I did the damage in the first session,” Robertson said.
”I was very happy with my safety game in the match because although Steve is past his best, he still makes it very tough for you out there, and because my safety was good it created a lot of chances, which on the whole, I scored well from them.
”I do feel that I am a better player than two years ago, the main reason is that I‘ve gone back to playing my more natural aggressive and fluent game, and also increased my work load on the practice table.”
As for Murphy, he came from 7-6 down to see off the game challenge of Andrew Higginson 10-8 in a surprisingly tight and tense affair.
Murphy has been struggling with a cold all week and he looked well below his best for most of the match.
However, he upped his game when he needed it most, reeling off four frames out frame, a run in which he racked up a century (101), to avoid the ignominy of a shock first-round exit.
2005 winner Murphy will now play Marco Fu in the second round.
”I wasn't feeling well and I'm not feeling great so I'll go home, straight to bed and try and recover,” he said immediately after his win over Higginson.
”I saw a bit of Marco's match and he looks like he's playing well so I'll have to do better than that.
”I'm suffering from flu symptoms, I've been getting up to go practising and then going home to rest. I'm just not feeling great, headaches and sickness. I feel like I'm 65. I'm going to struggle to go 17 days feeling the way I do.
”But I will go and practice and will try and have a look at some of things I didn't feel were quite right. I think they were mainly not right because of the way I'm feeling.”
Meanwhile, Stephen Maguire ended the opening session of his clash with Jamie Burnett 6-3 ahead.
However, he would have left The Embassy feeling somewhat downbeat.
Indeed, not only did he lose the final two frames of the session, he also missed out on a potential maximum break.
Maguire had potted 12 reds and 12 blacks when he missed a tricky red to the middle, thus ending his hopes of a 147.
In the final match of the day, John Higgins, the two-time former champion, holds a narrow 5-4 advantage over Michael Holt after the first session.
A break of 102 in the third frame pushed the Nottingham player into a 3-1 lead and after six frames he was 4-2 in front but the Scot took full advantage of a missed pink by his opponent in the seventh frame to claw one back.
The 33-year-old then squared things up with a 91 break in the eight before dominating and ultimately taking the ninth.