MARK Allen reached the second round of the Cazoo World Snooker Championship on Monday evening after a 10-5 victory over Fan Zhengyi of China.
The Antrim man took a 6-3 lead from the morning session into the evening session and although he lost two of the first three frames of the evening, he stamped his authority on his young opponent by winning three frames on the trot from 7-5 to close out the match.
He now faces Stuart Bingham over the best of 25 frames, with one session a day from Thursday evening to Saturday morning.
Two more players progressed to the last 16 on Monday, Hossein Vafaei winning six frames out of seven to beat Ding Junhui 10-6 and Mark Williams winning the first six against Jimmy Robertson to turn a 5-4 deficit into a 10-5 win.
Hossein now faces defending champion Ronnie O’Sullivan, while Williams takes on Luca Brecel.
LAST 16
Ronnie O’Sullivan (Eng) v Hossein Vafaei (Ira)
Mark Williams (Wal) v Luca Brecel (Bel)
Judd Trump(Eng)/Anthony McGill (Sco) v Jack Lisowski (Eng)/Noppon Saengkham (Tha)
Mark Allen (NI) v Stuart Bingham (Eng)
Jak Jones (Wal) v Neil Robertson (Aus)
Karen Wilson (Eng)/Ryan Day (Wal) v John Higgins (Sco)/David Grace (Eng)*
Gary Wilson (Eng)/Elliot Slessor (Eng) v Mark Selby (Eng)/Matthew Selt (Eng)
* Higgins leads 7-2 after first session
