A review of the action on day three of the Zhiyuan World Open.
Selby on song in Saengkham cruise
English Open hero Mark Selby continued his recent resurgence with a comfortable 5-2 defeat of Noppon Saengkham in the second round.
Following an unusually lean 12 months, Selby roared back to his best with victory in Crawley a couple of weeks ago and he looks to mean business again, breaks of 70, 55, 75 and 93 helping the former world number one ease past Saengkham.
After Selby had raced into a 3-1 lead, Saengkham produced a wonderful century (100) to reduce his deficit to 3-2 but Selby dominated frame six before closing out the match in typically ruthless style, setting up a last-16 clash with either Stuart Bingham or Jimmy Robertson.
Jack Lisowski didn't have to be at his best to see off Xiao Guodong but breaks of 74 and 75 helped him coast to a 5-1 win.
Murphy crashes out
Shaun Murphy has enjoyed a terrific start to the season but was brought down to earth in no uncertain terms by Graeme Dott who produced a dominant display to win 5-1.
Murphy actually took the opening frame with a break 81 but that would be his last moment of cheer as Dott took control of the match thereafter, stringing together five frames in succession thanks to breaks of 57, 70 and 62.
Having battled back to edge past Zhao Xintong in round one, David Gilbert enjoyed a much more straightforward task when whitewashing Anthony McGill 5-0.
Gilbert was always in the ascendancy after producing breaks of 110, 68 and 66 to race into a 3-0 lead and he twice picked McGill's pocket in frames four and five to seal a comfortable success.
Trump made to work hard again
For the second day running Judd Trump was pushed hard, this time by Liang Wenbo who played his part in a high-quality match before eventually losing 5-3.
Trump again had his break-building game in good working order, reeling off breaks of 81, 60, 129, 61 and 105 but he needed to win three frames in succession having fallen 3-2 behind.
John Higgins looks to be steadily working his way into form and he knocked in breaks of 127, 62, 98 and 73 in an impressive display that saw him run out a 5-1 victor over Mark Davis.
Ding Junhui came through a scrappy encounter with Martin O'Donnell 5-2 while Michael Holt enjoyed another good win, this time over Barry Hawkins.
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Zhou Yuelong were others to make it through to the last 16 on Wednesday.
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