Ken Doherty’s UK Championship campaign came to a close as he was eliminated by Mark Davis on a 6-3 scoreline in the second round in York.
Davis exploded out of the blocks against the Dubliner with a break of 137, but Doherty levelled the match after registering a 51 break in the second frame.
Davis edged ahead before the 1997 world champion responded with a 67 break as the players went into the mid-session interval tied at 2-2.
However, Davis dominated matters on the resumption, losing just a single frame to run out a convincing winner.
Three-time champion John Higgins continued his renaissance but picked holes in his own performance as he reached round three.
The 40-year-old Scot has returned to something approaching the form that made him one of the game's dominant forces for over a decade and arrived at the Barbican as a real title fancy.
He did little to dampen the enthusiasm as he saw off Tian Pengfei 6-2, with five breaks in excess of 50 headlined by a closing 103.
But Higgins said: "I didn't play well, I missed too many easy balls, but I'm pleased to win.
"Tian missed a couple of shots in the fifth frame that proved pivotal, I managed to nick it and from then I thought I was in control.
"With it being 128 players and the way it works out, I think you can sometimes play your way into a tournament better now than before. It helps some of the top players that you are getting into the tournament, you're playing a couple of matches and feeling settled."
Stuart Bingham also secured his passage into the second week by beating Anthony Hamilton.
The world champion looked in great touch, cracking in a brilliant 143 clearance to seal the 6-3 win.
"The frame to go 4-2 was the turning point and after that I finished the match well," Bingham said on worldsnooker.com.
“I felt confident and I wanted to stay positive and go for my shots in the way I did at the World Championship."
Former world champion Graeme Dott looked certain to make round three too as he led Jack Lisowski 4-1 and 5-2 before an inexplicable collapse.
Lisowski did not make a break in excess of 83 but it was enough to put Dott under pressure and the Scot failed to see off his charge, losing 6-5.
Mark Williams - a two-time winner of the UK - also lost a deciding frame to Tom Ford, a cool 66 getting the job done.
Elsewhere, Martin Gould beat Gary Wilson 6-4, Liang Wenbo saw off Jimmy Robertson 6-2 and Marco Fu whitewashed Yu De Lu.
