DAQING, China, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Except for Ronnie O'Sullivan and Neil Robertson, the world championship winners all savored their victories for the last eight spots of the 2016 World Snooker International Championship at China's northeast city of Daqing on Wednesday.
The first four matches in the afternoon witnessed all former World Championship winners beat their respective opponents.
After three straight domestic battles in the previous rounds, Heilongjiang Province native Liang Wenbo met world No.1 Mark Selby, took a 2-1 lead soon, and even eyed at his match point when each of them won three frames.
When Selby tied it up again at 5-5, Liang scored 24 before missing an easy red. Selby outscored him 69-24 to leave Liang with no choice but to make snooker. Liang tried in vein and was trapped in Selby's defence, losing 6-5 to the world champion of 2016.
The 2015 champion Stuart Bingham enjoyed a comfortable 6-1 victory over Allister Carter, while 2005 winner Shaun Murphy also won 6-1 over Sam Baird.
Another Chinese player Zhou Yuelong was beaten 6-2 by four-time champion John Higgins. The defending champion at Daqing will meet home favorite Ding Junhui in the quarterfinal.
Ding won a tough 11-frame match over Ricky Walden who wasted probably his best chance in the decider as he left the brown close to the pocket. Ding surged to 70-37 and took the match while Walden turned back to blame himself.
On the table nearby, O'Sullivan cut the deficit down to 5-4 before he accidently dropped the pink to let Michael Holt win the 10th frame and the match. Meanwhile, Robertson lost to Joe Perry 6-2 in a one-sided match.
Judd Trump wasted little time beating James Wattana to be the first to order a berth in the final eight, and will meet Murphy on Thursday.
The other two quarterfinals will see Holt against Bingham and Perry versus Selby.
