World Snooker Championship:Stephen Maguire kept his composure in trying circumstances to clinch a crushing Crucible victory over Jamie Burnett. The 28-year-old Glaswegian converted the 6-3 lead he secured in the opening session into a 10-5 match victory, setting up a last-16 meeting with Mark King with a total clearance of 127.
The first-round match at the Betfred.com World Championship marked the first meeting of the Scots since Maguire beat Burnett 9-3 amid controversy at the UK Championship.
That December result in Telford is being investigated by Strathclyde Police's economic crime unit, who have interviewed both players in the last week, and the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association.
Bookmakers were concerned by betting patterns ahead of that match and alerted the snooker authorities. Both players have denied wrongdoing and pledged to comply with the investigations.
They nevertheless knew the spotlight would be on their clash in Sheffield from the moment they were paired together in the draw.
Because Maguire and Burnett are close friends, the match was played in good spirits and they frequently spoke between frames.
But world number two Maguire never looked like relinquishing his overnight 6-3 lead and, thanks to breaks of 122, 48 and 79, he built up too imposing a lead to be caught.
Burnett briefly rallied but Maguire tied up victory with his third century of the match.
Northern Ireland's Mark Allen matched Ronnie O'Sullivan blow for blow for a 4-4 scoreline after the first session of his second-round match.
O'Sullivan, 33, was frustrated with his opening performance against Stuart Bingham and gave himself marks of five out of 10.
He was again only intermittently impressive in the early stages of his best-of-25-frame clash with Allen.
The signs were not promising when O'Sullivan missed three attempts to pot the blue before getting 20 points on the scoreboard.
He should still have pinched the opening frame but missed the final pink and Allen made the pot required to go 1-0 ahead.
The 23-year-old from Antrim, was soon 2-0 up following more erratic play from O'Sullivan.
He was back in front in the third frame but missed a long blue to halt a break of 53.
O'Sullivan took advantage, clearing to the pink, before winning the next with a break of 67 to level up at 2-2.
He went 3-2 ahead but Allen responded to bring himself level again.
Allen stormed into a 4-3 lead with a classy break of 119, however, O'Sullivan responded with 93.
They resume tomorrow afternoon and the match will conclude on Saturday.
Earlier, John Higgins stormed through to the second round by turning on the style against Michael Holt.
The 1998 and 2007 champion had been 4-2 behind against Nottingham's Holt at one stage on Wednesday but he lost only one more frame as he emerged a 10-5 winner.
Higgins made breaks of 131, 68 and 80 on Thursday, winning the closing four frames in rapid fashion to set up a clash with Jamie Cope in the last 16.
Meanwhile Stephen Hendry and Ding Junhui are tied at 4-4 after an entertaining first session in their second-round clash.
Seven-time champion Hendry survived a tricky opening match against Mark Williams, while Ding overcame his fellow Chinese player Liang Wenbo.
On Thursday Ding moved into a 3-1 lead with breaks of 59, 112 and 88, however Hendry hit back by taking the next three frames.
He made sharp runs of 91 and 76 during the session to indicate his best form is coming back at just the right time, after a largely disappointing season.
But Ding secured the eighth frame after breaks of 58 and 32 to ensure they will resume on level terms on Friday morning, with 13 frames required to advance to the quarter-finals.