World number 11 Mark Allen will not be at next month’s China Open for the third year running after losing to world number 75 Mitchell Mann 5-2.
Mann sailed into a 3-0 lead which included a break of 102, Allen then went on to win the fourth frame.
However, the Northern Irishman soon fell further behind after a break of 88 from Mann meant that he only needed the one frame to win.
Nicknamed ‘The Pistol’, Allen made a century break but it wasn’t to be as Mann went on to win the next frame to book his place in China next month.
Mark Williams also crashed out after losing to Martin O’Donnell 5-3. The Welshman lead 3-1 but the world number 89 went on the win four frames in a row, with the last frame finishing 71-68 in O’Donnell’s favour.
The rest of the top 16
It was fairly comfortable for the players in the top 16 who played in Barnsley. Judd Trump powered his way through with a 5-0 win against Joel Walker, as did Barry Hawkins against Sanderson Lam.
Newly crowned German Masters champion, Martin Gould and Shaun Murphy lost only one frame whilst Joe Perry and Marco Fu beat Fraser Patrick and Gareth Allen 5-2. John Higgins completed the 5-2 victories for the top 16 against Michael Wasley.
Ricky Walden only just qualified after beating Barry Pinches 5-4, whereas it was more comfortable for Neil Robertson who recorded a 5-3 victory.
Straight forward wins
There were several one-sided matches which ended in whitewashes; the first of which came from the match between Dominic Dale and Hatem Yassen, as the Welshman won 5-0 with breaks of 113 and 82.
Dale wasn’t the only Welshman who won convincingly. Lyu Chenwei was on the wrong side of a whitewash thanks to Jamie Jones who, despite his impressive scoreline, only made a highest break of 55.
Elsewhere, Mark Davis, Jimmy Robertson and Ross Muir all won their matches against Steven Hallworth, Itaro Santos and Jamie Burnett without dropping a frame.
Matches that went all the way
Peter Ebdon won a nail-biting ninth frame against Michael Georgiou in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The match started at 7pm (GMT) and didn’t finish until midnight, in a game which included a century break from each player.
Jimmy White rolled back the years but proved unsuccessful against Graeme Dott after leading 4-0 to lose 5-4. Alan McManus narrowly avoided an early exit after beating Sydney Wilson 5-4.
Michael White played all nine frames to win his match against Craig Steadman and, with a break of 64 in the final frame, the Welshman secured his place.
Gerard Greene, David Gilbert and Rod Lawler all won their matches 5-4 against Oliver Brown, Duane Jones and Hammad Miah, respectively.
Other notable wins
Anthony McGill booked his place in Beijing next month after a comfortable 5-1 Jake Nicholson; the Scotsman will be joined by Marco Fu who beat Gareth Allen 5-2.
Allister Carter secured an impressive 5-1 victory against Alex Taubman, as did Matthew Stevens against Chris Melling.
Elsewhere, there were 5-1 wins for German Masters runner-up Luca Brecel against Zhang Anda. Michael Holt and Ryan Day beat Matthew Day and Brett Miller by the same score line.