2015 German Masters Day 1 - Selby, Trump & Robbo into Last 16

Selby overcomes McGill's test

There weren’t any major fireworks during the first day of the 2015 Kreativ Dental German Masters, but a lot of tense matches saw all their frames being played.

Mark Selby meet Scotland's Ants McGill in the first televised match of the tournament and, as expected, the reigning champion took the time into finding his winning form.

The snooker confrontation was opened with a scrappy frame, which was won by Selby, to which his opponent reacted by hitting a pretty good 54 break to draw level.

But despite Anthony's master plan of putting Selby in all sorts of trouble and the Jester's jet-lag, the scoreline ended on a 3-1 note at the interval (in favour of the Englishman) thanks to a 3^rd frame won on the black and a break of 80.

Full comeback but no victory this time

As the lads returned into the arena, Selby used runs of 34 and 36 to go one away from victory, while McGill plotted his comeback.

A splendid collection of breaks (66, 88 and 65) were enough to keep the match alive and give the audience the first decider of the competition. And after a tremendous battle of nerves, Selby managed to seal his victory by 5-4.

At a near table, John Higgins was losing by 5-2 in front of a very determined Peter Ebdon.

Although, Higgins's form seemed on the right track during his brief appearance at the Master, today was a whole different story.

After breaking the ice and winning a scrappy first frame, the only time John put Ebbo in trouble was when he cleared the table with a 62 break and went in front at 2-1.

Trump secures Last 16 spot

That was going to be his last serious contribution to the match, for Peter hit in breaks of 65, 80, 133 and 66 to go over the finish-line.

At the same time Martin Gould beat Ashley Carty by 5-3, after the lads went hand in hand up until 3-3.

The evening session had the names of Judd Trump and Michael Holt on the spotlight, Trump securing himself a place in the Last 16 after a 5-0 victory over his opponent.

Although far from the competing animal that the fans adore, Trump cruised towards meeting Martin Gould in the next round, with breaks of 45, 50, 44, 104 and 102.

Holt's been punished to sit and watch

Just a few meters away Neil Robertson was performing the second whitewash of the day, this time the victim being the Irishman Fergal O'Brien, while Scotland's Stephen Maguire beat a pretty dangerous David Gilbert by 5-3 after leading 4-0.

Xiao Guodong and Liam Highfield offered the audience a genuine battle of snooker and nerves, the players going hand in hand from the very beginning of the match and ending it, as expected, on a decider which China's Xiao wrote his name on.

Another tense match and the one to finish last, featured the names of Mark King and Barry Hawkins, Mark being the one to survive by 5-3.

“Snooker made in Germany” continues on Thursday as it follows:

9am    
Ding Junhui v Ryan Day                    
Michael Georgiou v Alfie Burden                  
Matthew Selt v Stuart Bingham                     

2pm
Li Hang v Liang Wenbo                     
Mark Allen v Mark Williams                         
Michael Wasley v Shaun Murphy                   
Joe Perry v  Jimmy Robertson                        
Mark Davis v Ronnie O'Sullivan                   

7pm 
Neil Robertson v  Xiao Guodong                   
Stephen Maguire v Mark King                       
Judd Trump v  Martin Gould                         
Peter Ebdon v Mark Selby

 * all hours are UK time