Trump, Higgins and Ding fall in China

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John Higgins of Scotland competes during the first round match between Joe O'Connor of England and John Higgins of Scotland at 2019 World Snooker China Open tournament in Beijing, capital of China, April 2, 2019. Joe O'Connor won 6-2. (Xinhua/Li Ying)

The upsets kept coming on Day 2 of the XingPai China Open with Judd Trump, John Higgins, Ding Junhui and Mark Williams all suffered surprise defeats in the last 64 on Tuesday.

Defeat for Mark Selby yesterday and the absence of Ronnie O'Sullivan and Mark Allen had left Trump, Higgins and Williams as the highest ranked players left in the £1 million tournament, but they are all now heading out of Beijing. Just two days into the tournament, world number seven Neil Robertson is the highest ranked player remaining.

Higgins admitted he could be an "also-ran" for the World Championship after a 6-2 defeat against rookie pro Joe O'Connor.

Four-time Crucible king Higgins has had a poor season by his standards, his only appearance in the final of a ranking event coming at the China Championship in September. This is the second time within two months he has lost to world number 84 O'Connor; they met in the quarter-finals of the Welsh Open in February with Higgins beaten 5-3.

This time, Higgins went 2-0 up but Leicester's O'Connor took the next six frames with top breaks of 72, 66, 63 and 65. The 23-year-old, whose promising debut season was highlighted by that run to the Welsh Open semi-finals, now meets Iran's Hossein Vafaei in the last 32.

Williams, who won the World Championship title for the third time last May, was beaten 6-4 by veteran Ken Doherty in a high quality match. Irishman Doherty, who tuns 50 later this year, compiled breaks of 76, 62, 115 and 90. Williams made 91, 53, 75 and 71 but it wasn't enough and he will go into his Crucible defence having not reached a ranking event semi-final since winning the Yushan World Open in August.

Trump has had the best season of his career, having won the Masters and two ranking titles, but he was edged out 6-5 by Robbie Williams. A break of 119 helped world number 64 Williams build a 3-0 advantage and he later led 5-3. Trump took frame nine on the black and won the next as well for 5-5. The decider lasted 65 minutes and came down to the colours. Trump trailed by 21 points when he played a loose safety on the green and his opponent potted it, later adding the brown to secure victory.

China's top player Ding Junhui was yet another high profile casualty as he lost 6-3 to James Wattana. Thailand's 49-year-old Wattana scored breaks of 81, 99 and 98. Ding has reached the quarter-finals of just one ranking event this season.

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