Day two at The Crucible and after all the drama of yesterday, which saw the elimination of the top seed Mark Selby, all eyes were on this mornings session to see if no.2 seed Ronnie O'Sullivan was going to follow him.
It was way back in 1982 that we last saw both top seeds go out in the first round & Ronnie showed that he was in no mood to see it repeated here as he flew out of the traps. Trailing Maguire 6-3 overnight,a 3-1 mini session was the least he could afford and that is exactly what he got with \Maguire only taking to last before the interval to hold the slimmest of advantages at 7-6.
That was to be as good as it got for Maguire though as Ronnie reeled off the next four when they resumed to seal a 10-7 victory.
So the stat books can be put away for now and maybe the most impressive thing about Ronnies display was the way he dug in when things got tough. That can only bode well for his chances here over the next fortnight.For now he can enjoy a couple of days rest before a second round clash with Ali Carter.
Carter had also started the day trailing 6-3 to Graeme Dott,but just like Ronnie he got going quickly to level it up at 6-6.These two have a history of close matches and one of those tight,dramatic Crucible finishes looked on the cards here as they traded blows over the next four frames to make it 8-8.
Carter though had looked the more likely to score in the balls all day & that proved to be the deciding factor as runs of 56 & 63 saw him over the finish line 10-8.
In other matches to finish today Lyu Haotian made it a Crucible debut to remember as he swept to a 10-5 victory over Marco Fu.
Starting with a 6-3 overnight lead, the 20 year old Chinese was in no mood for a long night as he took the opening two frames to lead 8-3. Fu to his credit never gave up though and thoughts of his amazing comeback against Brecel here last year started to resurface as he closed to 8-5.There was to be no fairytale comeback this time though as Lyu impressively closed out the match with runs of 79 & 61.
He can now look forward to a second round match against either Hawkins or Carrington. As for Fu, hopefully the summer can see a return to full health for someone who is a class act on and off the table.
Also through to the last 16 is Kyren Wilson who carried a 7-2 lead over Matthew Stevens into tonights session & quickly dispatched an under the weather opponent 10-3.
Elsewhere in matches that started out today, Masters champ Mark Allen will be delighted to hold a 6-3 advantage over a potentially dangerous opponent in Liam Highfield,but Shaun Murphy wont be sleeping quite so easy after letting an early advantage slip to only hold a 5-4 lead overnight against Jamie Jones
They will both finish tomorrow where we also see four more matches starting out including the campaign of Chinese no.1 Ding junhui.
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