Mark Selby made short work of getting past snooker's marathon man Fergal O'Brien in the first round of the Betfred World Championship.
Three days after the Dubliner took a staggering two hours, three minutes and 41 seconds to win a deciding frame in the final round of qualifying, the Irish veteran was on the end of a 10-2 Selby onslaught.
O'Brien and David Gilbert set a world record for the longest frame in professional snooker in their high-stakes tussle on Wednesday, and it lasted longer even than the fastest marathon ever run.
Dubliner O'Brien had desperately craved a 10th Crucible appearance, having missed out in qualifying for the last six years, but it could hardly have gone any worse.
Selby had no appetite for going the full distance with 45-year-old O'Brien, whose grin when winning the ninth frame showed his relief at avoiding a whitewash.
He picked up a second frame too, but Selby soon crossed the winning line.
John Parrott's 10-0 win over Eddie Charlton in 1992 remains the only time a player has failed to win a frame in Crucible history.
Selby modestly said his performance "could have been better", and the 33-year-old added: "I was gutted not to come out 9-0 after the first session, knowing there'd only been one whitewash here and it'd be nice to get another one.
"No disrespect to Fergal who's a great guy, but at 8-1 I was devastated when he won that frame.
"I'll get on the practice table over the next few days and go and then go and watch Leicester (in the Champions League) on Tuesday night against Atletico Madrid - hopefully they can get through."
O'Brien put on a brave face. "I still thoroughly enjoyed it," he said.
"Obviously when it got to 6-0, 7-0 I wasn't so comfortable, dreading I was going to have the bagel after my name, but winning that first frame was quite enjoyable because the crowd were willing me not to be whitewashed.
"Probably after the efforts of getting here, there wasn't much left in the tank."
Stephen Maguire overwhelmed his fellow Scot Anthony McGill, also 10-2, ending a winless run in Sheffield that dated back to his 2012 quarter-final victory over seven-time champion Stephen Hendry.
Hendry retired that night, and Maguire went on to lose to Ali Carter in the semi-finals, before enduring four consecutive first-round exits at the Crucible, three of them by a spirit-crushing 10-9 margin.
This time Maguire exacted revenge for his defeat to McGill at the same stage two years ago, and did so in devastating fashion.
In the seven-frame burst that took him from 2-2 to 9-2, Maguire limited McGill to just one point while plundering 547 himself.
McGill said of the performance by Maguire: "He looked sharp and he looked a hell of a lot better than me.
"It's happened to the best of them, players being drubbed. Steve Davis came here and got drubbed 10-1 one year so if it happened to him it can happen to anyone.
"You've got to take it on the chin."
