Of the two Marks, Selby had the tougher time, squeezing past Sam Baird by 13 frames to 11. There were times in the match when Mark Selby was sublime, especially when compiling breaks of 134, 133 and 115. At other times he seemed a little hesitant and the match, especially towards the later stages, saw some protracted safety exchanges with neither player able to dominate the play.
At one stage Selby led 11-7 and looked set for an easy win. However, Baird dug deeper and the match proceeded as a cat-and-mouse affair until it reached 11 apiece. From here, Selby took the last two frames, relatively comfortably: 71 points to 14 and 73-39, to win 13-11.
With Mark Williams, the twice former champion from Wales defeated England’s Michael Holt by 13 frames to 8. Leading 10-6 overnight, Williams shared the opening four frames with Holt, the highlight of which was a 109 break from the Englishman. On the resumption from the mid-session interval, Williams won the frame he needed to progress to he next round, coming from 1-21 behind to clinch the match with a break of 58.
Williams won the match through his superior safety play. Neither his potting not his break building were anywhere close to his peak. Across the 21 frames, Williams made just six breaks of 50 plus, with an 87 being his highest. This was good enough to beat Holt but Williams will need to raise his game for his next match.
One further match was completed on day seven. Upsetting the form book, veteran player Alan McManus, from Scotland, knocked out England’s Ali Carter in a tight game. McManus won 13-11. Behind 7-9 going into the final session, McManus produced his best form of the match to win four successive frames to lead 11-9. This run included a beak of 119 and a crucial black ball win in the twentieth frame, 69-61, after Carter had looked in prime position to win the frame when making a break of 61. Ahead at 12-10, Carter produced his second match century – a break of exactly 100 – however McManus won a low scoring twenty-fourth frame by 55-18 to move into the quarter-finals.
Two matches saw one session completed. John Higgins leads Ricky Walden 5-3 whereas Ronnie O’Sullivan, despite beaks of 13 and 139, surprisingly trails Barry Hawkins 3-5. The 139 from O’Sullivan was brilliant and the five times champion took only eight minutes to make it.
