Mcgill sleeps in but answers wake-up call to pot place in next round

Anthony Mcgill suffered a rude awakening at the China Open after almost sleeping through his opening match but recovered to reach the second round.

The Glaswegian was due to face Nigel Bond at 2.30pm in Beijing but was still in bed until tournament director Martin Clark called him two minutes before the match was to start.

Mcgill raced to the venue and, though he was docked the first frame for arriving late, he was in time to avoid a second penalty.

Perhaps still rubbing his eyes, the 28-year-old fell 3-1 behind but used breaks of 133, 100, 86 and 61 to rally for a 6-4 win.

“I have been sleeping a lot since I got here, so I didn’t bother setting an alarm,” Mcgill said on the World Snooker website.

“I woke up during the night, practised for two hours, then went back to bed at 7am. The next thing I knew, my phone was vibrating. It was 2.28pm, it was Martin Clark ringing me. I got dressed in 60 seconds and ran down to the hotel foyer. I didn’t even have a shower or brush my teeth. My shoelaces were still untied, it was like a movie scene.”

Mcgill will now await either Stephen Maguire or Xu Si in the second round, but Mark Selby’s hopes of defending his title are already over.

Selby, who last week lost the world No 1 ranking to Ronnie O’sullivan, was handed an early exit as he lost 6-3 to Craig Steadman, ranked a lowly 92nd in the world.

There were also wins for Mark Williams and Ding Junhui in the ‘heldover’ qualifying round and Stuart Bingham, Neil Robertson, Ali Carter, David Gilbert and Luca Brecel in the first-round proper, but Marco Fu crashed out 6-3 to Mei Xi Wen.