Northern Ireland Open snooker - Shaun Murphy beats Bai Langning in Belfast after Ronnie O'Sullivan wins

ByJames Walker-Roberts

Updated 13/10/2021 at 17:04 GMT

There have been no big upsets yet at the Northern Ireland Open as Mark Selby survived a big scare and Shaun Murphy also advanced to the next round.Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Williams, John Higgins and Kyren Wilson are all in action on Monday evening. Watch the Northern Ireland Open and the snooker Home Nations series live on Eurosport, eurosport.co.uk and the Eurosport app.

Shaun Murphy battled past Bai Langning to reach the second round of the Northern Ireland Open while Mark Selby survived a big scare as Cao Yupeng missed the final black of the match to beat the world No 1.

In the last of the first-round matches, Murphy was made to work hard for a 4-2 win at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast.

The world No 6 won the opening two frames of the match but Bai hit back for 2-1. Murphy moved two frames ahead again, only for his opponent to cut the deficit to one with a match-high 73 break.

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Bai looked like he might take it to a decider as he moved 24-0 ahead in the sixth frame, but he ran out of position and allowed Murphy to the table. Murphy took his chance with a break of 59 to book his place against Allan Taylor in the next round.

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'Would you believe that?' - Selby drops rest on brown in 'extraordinary' gaffe

Selby was 2-1 and 3-2 up against Cao but was pegged back on both occasions. Cao was 30-0 ahead in the deciding frame but missed a red and a break of 66 looked like it would be enough to see Selby across the line.

However, Cao got an excellent snooker behind the brown before following up with superb pots on the green and brown. He looked set to clean up and win the frame 67-66, only to miss the last black along the cushion and give Selby an easy pot for victory.

Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Williams, John Higgins and Kyren Wilson are all in action on Monday evening.

Luca Brecel also advanced with a 4-2 win over Liang Wenbo.

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Wenbo won the opening two frames, the second with a 113 break, but Brecel levelled and then sealed victory with breaks of 79 and 94.

Yan Bingtao came from 3-1 down to beat Duane Jones while amateur James Cahill won 4-0 against Fergal O'Brien.

Barry Hawkins became the biggest casualty so far as he was beaten 4-0 by Mark King, who made breaks of 50, 110 and 68 to knock out the 11th seed.

Ali Carter lost 4-2 to China's Lu Haotian.

The world No 22 was a semi-finalist when the tournament was held behind closed doors in Milton Keynes last year, because of coronavirus restrictions. But he had an unhappy return to Belfast, where he had never got past the third round.

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Stream the Northern Ireland Open live and on demand on discovery+, the Eurosport app and eurosport.com.

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