Neil Robertson beat Kyren Wilson 6-4 in and up-and-down start to the Players Championship.
Robertson made two centuries including a fine 114 in the first frame, but both he and Wilson struggled at times to get to grips with a slow-running table.
Wilson fought hard despite having trailed early on but missed his chance to force a decider, which allowed Robertson to produce a moment of magic to release a problem brown ball which he'd pot before completing the job.
🤩 What a positional shot, and @nr147 is quite rightly beaming with pride over this match-winner...pic.twitter.com/FnLHkzmUkq
— Sporting Life 🎯🔴🎾⛳️🥊🏏🏉 🏈 (@SportingLifeFC) February 7, 2022
"My preparation has been awful, I'm still really tired" said Robertson, who arrived late following a bout of Covid-19 and some travel complications on Monday. "I did well to try and maintain a good pace and keep it pretty aggressive.
"I'm really proud how I dug in today, because going out there I wasn't feeling great."
It was Robertson who began on the front foot with a fluent century and after the next two frames were shared, a careless safety from Wilson saw Robertson take a 3-1 lead into the interval.
Wilson battled back to parity and after Robertson's 94 saw him lead again at 4-3, Wilson posted the first bid for a £10,000 high break prize with a 141 total clearance.
Robertson responded with a century of his own, playing a series of excellent positional shots to ensure his clearance reached 100 and landed Sporting Life readers a 15/8 winner, before a scrappy 10th frame went down to the colours.
Robertson then played a daring cannon which released the brown into an ideal position to travel down to the blue, before adding the final pink to reach the last eight and a mouthwatering clash with either Ronnie O'Sullivan or Judd Trump.
"It was an unbelievable shot wasn't it," said the Australian. "I played the shot beautifully."
Williams through despite slow start
On the second table, Mark Williams did not need to be at his best to beat Gary Wilson 6-3.
Wilson took the opening two frames with breaks of 63 and 64 which proved to be the highest of the match, before Williams snatched a tight third frame and then levelled heading into the interval.
Wilson nosed back in front but that would prove to be his final contribution as Williams from four frames in a row, despite failing to register a single break of 50 or more.
The Welshman, one of two outright selections from Richard Mann, will face Mark Allen or Ricky Walden in the quarter-finals.
