Shaun Murphy was made to work for his place in the first round proper of the Indian Open.
Facing home player Pandurangaiah in the wild card round on Tuesday, the world number five battled to a 4-2 win in which he lost the opening frame and did not record a half-century break until a 66 in the last.
Alan McManus and Anthony McGill were among the other players to come through the preliminary stage, the latter with breaks of 76, 65 and 94 in a 4-0 dismissal of home favourite and former finalist Aditya Mehta.
In round one, world number 32 Tom Ford was surprisingly beaten 4-3 by China's Tian Pengfei, whose compatriot Xu Si inflicted a 4-0 whitewash on Robin Hull.
Graeme Dott enjoyed an impressive 4-1 win over the highly-regarded Jack Lisowski and Joe Perry beat Daniel Wells by the same scoreline while Ricky Walden, down at number 24 in the world rankings, recovered from 3-1 down to beat Alfie Burden helped by breaks of 72 and 78.
The in-form Ken Doherty beat John Astley with a 62 break in the deciding frame while Matthew Selt, Mark Davis and Fergal O'Brien were among the day's other winners.
Tuesday results
Preliminary round:
Anthony McGill 4-0 Aditya Mehta
Li Hang 4-1 Srikrishna
Sam Baird 4-2 Lucky Vatnani
Mark Davis 4-0 Laxman Rawat
Alan McManus 4-0 Malkeet Singh
Shaun Murphy 4-2 Pandurangaiah
Andrew Higginson 4-0 Asutosh Padhy
First round:
Ben Woollaston W/O Yan Bingtao
Adam Duffy W/O Mark King
Tian Pengfei 4-3 Tom Ford
Xu Si 4-0 Robin Hull
Ken Doherty 4-3 John J Astley
Fergal O'Brien 4-3 Jimmy Robertson
Matthew Selt 4-0 Cao Yupeng
Graeme Dott 4-1 Jack Lisowski
Zhang Anda 4-3 Soheil Vahedi
Ricky Walden 4-3 Alfie Burden
Sean O'Sullivan 4-3 Josh Boileau
Joe Perry 4-1 Daniel Wells
Anthony Hamilton 1-4 Hossein Vafaei
Rory McLeod 4-3 Jackson Page
