The opening session at the China open today has already produced some surprising exits including Neil Robertson, Joe Perry, Michael White and Liang Wenbo.
Neil Robertson was defeated by Thailand’s Nappon Saengkham by five frames to three. This is the third consecutive early exit for Robertson. This is not what he wanted coming to the latter stages of the season and more importantly, coming into the world championships.
Joe Perry was whitewashed 5-0 by Alfie burden, a performance to forget but a great win for Alfie all the same.
Peter Lines beat Liang Wenbo 5-3 in a poor match for Wenbo where lots of easy balls were missed. Michael White who was playing decent stuff lately was beaten 5-1 by Jack Lisowski.
Apart from these few shocking early exits, John Higgins, Stuart Bingham, Graeme Dott, Robert Milkins, Dominic Dale and Stephen Maguire were a few names to book their place in the next round of the competition.
Later this afternoon, players such as Judd Trump and Ding Junhui will be getting their matches underway.