Neil Robertson knuckles down to rout O'Brien at World Championship

Australia's Neil Robertson was dragged into a cautious, grinding game foreign to his nature before overcoming Fergal O'Brien 10-5 today to reach the last 16 of the World Championship. Robertson was well in command at 5-1 but O'Brien, who was British Open champion 11 years ago and once ninth in the rankings, belied his descent to 31st by reducing this to 5-3 before a timely fluke gave the left-hander the impetus for a break of 106 and a 6-3 overnight lead. On the resumption, O'Brien again inched back into contention, taking the first two frames and leading 53-0 in the next only for Robertson, who won October's Grand Prix in Glasgow and has made more centuries, 36, than anyone else on the circuit this season, to win it on the black after 36 minutes' play. This, though, was a mere sprint compared to the following frame, a 69-minute duel which threatened the Crucible's record duration of 75 set by Stephen Maguire and Mark King last year. Twenty minutes was spent on the yellow alone. It ended in a tie before O'Brien mishit the first shot at the tiebreak black and did not pot a ball in the two remaining frames. "I felt like I was trying to get chewing gum off a carpet," said Robertson. "He's very measured, he's got tons of experience and he's not the kind of player to hand you chances on a plate. It wasn't slow play. The safety was really good." Observing China's national day of mourning for victims of the recent earthquake, Ding Junhui requested that his now customary entrance music not be played for the resumption of his match against Stuart Pettman. "It happened in a different part of the country to my friends and family but a lot of people died and I was very sad watching all the pictures on the internet," said Ding after completing his 10-1 win over the world No37. Mark Davis secured at least £16,000, already the best payday of his 19-year professional career, with a 10-8 victory over Ryan Day that the world No6 described as "a bad end to a bad season". At 7-7, Day overhit his positional shot from pink and left the ensuing thin-cut black hanging over a pocket; at 8-9, he missed a dolly red to let Davis in for 62 and could not recover. In five previous visits to the Crucible as a qualifier Davis had won only one match. "When you're not used to playing on the telly in places like this you try too hard," he said. This time, after a steadily productive season, he admitted to enjoying it more and can now look forward to his first top-32 ranking. The procurator fiscal, Scotland's prosecuting authority, is considering a report from Strathclyde Police relating to the pattern of betting on the 9-3 scoreline by which Stephen Maguire beat Jamie Burnett in the December 2008 UK Championship, while Stephen Lee is on police bail until June over a similar enquiry. For both Maguire and Lee it simply seemed business as usual yesterday, as Maguire took a 6-3 lead from a session in which Lee made a break of 127. After his epic 10-9 midnight win over Mark King, Steve Davis was yesterday enjoying a day off prior to starting his second-round match against the defending champion, John Higgins. Insufficiently motivated to practise much this season with long gaps between tournaments, the 52-year-old six-times champion nevertheless did make a special effort to get his game in shape for his 30th Crucible and his first reaction – "What a feeling!" – encapsulated the visceral satisfaction which only competition can offer. As the revivalist plans of Barry Hearn, the new chairman of the World Professional Billiards & Snooker Association, provide for a series of minor as well as ranking events in a much-fuller calendar, Davis intends to "go to everything and try to be a full-time player again".