Chris Wakelin surged to a 7-2 lead over 2010 World Champion Neil Robertson in the opening round of the Halo World Championship.
Wakelin is seeking his first ever match win at the Crucible. He lost out on Judgement Day in the last two years, and was beaten 10-9 by Judd Trump on his Crucible debut in 2018.
The former Shoot Out winner has enjoyed his best ever season. Wakelin was runner-up to Ding Junhui at the International Championship and has made two further quarter-final appearances, as well reaching one semi-final.
Australia’s Robertson arrived in Sheffield full of confidence, after winning the World Grand Prix with a 10-0 whitewash of Stuart Bingham in the final. However, the 25-time ranking event winner now finds himself on the verge of a surprise early exit.
Wakelin crushed in breaks of 108, 70 and 62 to move into an early 3-1 lead at the interval.
When play got back underway he pulled further clear, taking three on the bounce to move 6-1 in front. Robertson made a break of exactly 100 to make it 6-2. However, a 55-minute last frame of the session went the way of Wakelin on the black.
They return for the final session tomorrow evening at 7pm.
On the other table, Mark Williams withstood a barrage of unanswered points from China’s Wu Yize to end the session 5-4 ahead.
Wu summoned a blitz of 466 points without reply to hit back at Williams, who had assumed an early lead. That was the second highest run of points without reply in Crucible history, behind John Higgins’ tally of 485 in 2000.
Welshman Williams is competing in final stages for the 27th time in his career, having turned 50 in March. Two-time ranking event finalist Wu is making just a second Crucible appearance, at the age of 21.
Williams led 3-0, before breaks of 120, 90, 72 and 136 helped Wu to his run of unanswered points and a 4-3 lead. However, three-time World Champion Williams took the last two of the session to end 5-4 up.
They will play to a finish tomorrow afternoon from 2:30pm.