Romanian Snooker Masters (Day 1): Robertson & Selby face early exit

The first day of the Romanian Snooker Masters recorded some pretty huge shocks, as both Neil Robertson and Mark Selby faced an early first-round exit.

Spring has come to Bucharest, Romania and so did snooker, this magnificent combination kicking off this Wednesday at the Metropolitan Circus with the likes of Ali Carter, Mark Williams, Mark King and Stephen Maguire.

Interestingly enough the first two matches of the day ended on the same result, Carter whitewashing Willo, 4-0 thanks to breaks of 74, 133 and 71, while Maguire "burnt" King with the same result, supported by top breaks of 109, 61, 108 and 74.

The evening came and with it the first match that saw all its frames being played: Neil Robertson v. Stuart Bingham.

The 2015 world champion opened the scoreline with a top break of 91 to take the first two frames of the match, but Robertson fought back not only to draw level, but also to put his nose in front.

It was 3-2, but Bingham had other plans. Plans that made him hit a beautiful 137 break (the highest of the tournament so far) and win two consecutive frame to get his place booked in the quarter-finals.

A very different match followed next, as Mark Selby and Liang Wenbo took the stage in a pretty low-standard confrontation of cues.

The lads got tangled in a pretty scrappy, 43-minute opening frame which went Wenbo's way thanks to a top break of 48, to which the Chinese player added a 47 to go 2-0 up.

Selby pulled one back by using half a century break, but the next one was cashed by Wenbo who was now just one away from victory.

The fifth frame saw Selby barely managing to add it to his collection, everything ending with Wenbo's runs of 31 and 41, for a final result of 4-2.

Today's order of play:

13:00 Barry Hawkins v Ryan Day
14:00  John Higgins v Anthony McGill

19:00 Judd Trump v Luca Brecel
20:00 Mark Allen v Kyren Wilson

Photo credit: Romanian Snooker Masters