Judd Trump, Mark Selby and Shaun Murphy All Progress

World number two, Judd Trump, who is on the pursuit of his fifth ranking title this term, whitewashed Billy Castle 4-0 to stage a last-32 meeting with either of Mark Davis or Igor Figueiredo.

The former World number one cruised to the third round of the Welsh Open in colours, dominating proceedings from start to finish. After hitting the 72nd century of his career in the second frame, there was little to nothing Mark Davis could do to stop him. He compounded Davis’s problems even further by racking up breaks of 71, and 67 Davis wouldn’t dare to match.

Just before that, Mark Selby avoided a potential banana skin to secure his pass to the third round of the Welsh Open. The scoreline at 4-1 doesn’t quite do justice to what went on at the table. In fact, it was Chen Zifan who took the first frame. No one would have thought a man 102 places behind Selby could start in that manner, but the 2008 champion was behind regardless. Selby placed his foot on the gas, delivering four frames on the trot, including breaks of 51 and 68, dashing Zhang’s hopes of staging an upset in the first place.

Ding Junhui was another who had his win come easy. The Chinese made light work of Englishman, Ricky Walden, posting a 4-1 scoreline in the process.

Junhui started on the front foot, opening the floor with a break of 74 before Walden responded with a bang! The Englishman levelled matters with an incredible century of 127. However, Welsh Open favorite who was rather unfazed by that response put to rest any talks of an upset, grabbing three straight frames, including an 88 in the fifth frame to secure a win and passage into the next round.

Shaun Murphy was the closest to suffering an upset, having had to fight back from a 3-2 deficit to secure a win. The Englishman was faced with Alfie Burden, who had taken a 3-2 lead by the fifth frame. However, Murphy took the game by the scruff of its neck, hitting a break of 116 to make a tie at 3-3 before claiming the deciding frame with a break of 73.

Written by: Roland Arum