Judd Trump, Mark Allen, Mark Selby, and John Higgins were among the star names to make it through the International Championship qualifiers this week.
The preliminary phase of the Chinese ranking event took place at Ponds Forge in Sheffield over the last few days.
World number one Trump comfortably reached the round of 64 and the venue stages of the competition with a comfortable 6-1 defeat of Chris Totten.
Allen, who began the season in top spot in the rankings before being usurped by Trump, scored a brace of century breaks to beat Farakh Ajaib 6-3.
Selby and Higgins weren’t fatigued by their recent escapades at the British Open, where the former captured the Clive Everton Trophy at the expense of the Scot in Sunday’s final.
Selby fired in a succession of big breaks to beat rookie Artemijs Zizins, while Higgins outplayed veteran former world champion Ken Doherty.
Mark Williams, Shaun Murphy, and Neil Robertson were among the other heavy hitters who safely booked their trips back to Asia.
There were some notable defeats, however, with Luca Brecel’s struggles continuing following a 6-3 reverse to Jiang Jun.
Tom Ford is arguably having an even worse campaign than the Belgian Bullet, and the Englishman’s top 16 membership is in jeopardy after losing early again – this time to up-and-coming talent Stan Moody.
Elsewhere, World Championship runner-up Jak Jones suffered a shock 6-5 loss to amateur top-up Simon Blackwell.
The story of the three-day International Championship qualifiers, though, was undoubtedly Thepchaiya Un-Nooh’s botched 147 attempt.
For the third time in his career, the Thai competitor got himself into the position to make a maximum break only to agonizingly miss the final black.
Consolation for Un-Nooh was the fact that he was able to put that disappointment behind him and win his match with Lei Peifan 6-4.
Several round-of-128 fixtures were held over to the venue stages, including the matches involving defending champion Zhang Anda and world champion Kyren Wilson.
Ronnie O’Sullivan’s scheduled outing with Mink Nutcharut and several ties with Chinese players were also deferred.
The International Championship takes place from November 3-10 in Nanjing.
