Mark Selby took a positive step in his bid to recapture form in time for the World Championship with a 5-1 victory over Ricky Walden at the German Masters.
The 35-year-old has endured a stop-start campaign, his second-round exit at the Masters emblematic of his struggles having impressed in an opening-round defeat of Stephen Maguire.
He'll be hoping to avoid something similar in Berlin, where on Thursday he rattled off three centuries, including a 120 in the penultimate frame which might have been a maximum 147 break had yellow along the top cushion not rattled in the jaws.
"I played a fantastic shot on the black," said Selby. "I thought 'all I've got to do is pot the yellow' but it wasn't to be."
Selby won the event in 2015 and has also landed the Germany-based Paul Hunter Classic on three occasions, and he's every inch a title contender once more based on this performance.
Next he'll face David Gilbert, who registered snooker's 147th and latest maximum in the Championship League just over a week ago.
Gilbert, who has never been past the second round in this event, got the better of Ben Woollaston 5-2, while Xiao Guodong thrashed Ryan Day 5-1.
Higgins' woes continue
In the afternoon session, John Higgins' poor season continued as he lost 5-4 to Chinese youngster Yuan Sijun.
Higgins led 3-1 at the mid-session interval despite Sijun seemingly dominating most of the early exchanges but the latter wasn't perturbed, reeling off breaks of 68, 54 and 51 to edge into the lead at 4-3.
Higgins forced a decider when responding with a clinical run of 93 in frame eight and looked sure to go on and win the match when well set in the frame nine until missing a simple red to middle when only a couple of pots from victory.
Sijun held his nerve get himself back into the frame and although needing a couple of bites of the cherry, sank the final pink from distance before potting the black with the rest to claim one of the biggest wins of his career.
Jack Lisowski was another high-profile casualty, losing 5-2 to Duane Jones, but Neil Roberston and Stuart Bingham eased past Kurt Maflin and Jimmy Robertson respectively.
Williams warming to the task
After a few months on the cold list, Mark Williams signalled a return to his best form when producing a flawless display to beat Joe Perry 5-0.
Williams reeled off breaks of 54, 53, 53 and 63 to book his place in the quarter-finals while Judd Trump is also through to the last eight following a comfortable 5-1 defeat of Yan Bingtao.
The recent Masters winner knocked in a high break of 113 along with three more 50+ contributions as he continues on his quest to claim a third major title of the season.
Stephen Maguire eased past Robert Milkins 5-1 while Kyren Wilson beat Peter Ebdon 5-2.
