Chinese snooker star Ding Junhui pulled off a stunning 10-8 upset over 12th-seed Martin Gould of England in the first round of the 2016 Betfred World Snooker Championship held at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England on Wednesday.
With the win, Junhui advanced to the second round of the said competitions against fifth-seed and former world no. 1 Judd Trump also of England in a best-of-25 frames affair, as reported by BBC Sport.
The 29-year-old Ding, also a former world no. 1 player, came in the said tournament as a qualifier for the first time since 2007 after he dropped out of the world's top 16. He was able to build a 4-1 lead over the 34-year-old Gould early in the match but the German Masters champion battled back to make it 5-4 after four frames.
Gould actually managed to equalize it at 5-5 and eventually take an 8-6 lead during crunch time as the current world no. 12 looked ready to move on to the last 16 round.
However, Ding pulled off one of his best performances in the succeeding frames, four straight successful breaks of 65, 132, 86, and 100, to sweep the remaining four frames on the way to the opening round victory, making Gould the sixth seeded competitor to get eliminated in the first round.
"I played quite good at the start," Ding told reporters after the match, as per Xinhuanet. "I made a few breaks to lead 4-1 and after he played better and fought back to put some pressure on me. He produced a good performance today also."
"Tonight I had a chance to go 7-7 and I lost that frame, but I tried not to think about that. Afterwards I thought to myself to go for everything, take the first chances that I got," he added. "I am feeling good. Terry (Griffiths) is doing a very good job to me. He is telling me to try and make things easy because the world championship is a long tournament."
Ding is the only Chinese player remaining in the second round after compatriots Liang Wenbo and Zhang Anda lost their first round matches to Trump and Barry Hawkins respectively.