O'Sullivan edges out Drago

World no. 1 Ronnie O'Sullivan scored his second 5-4 win of the event, edging out Malta's Tony Drago from the Regal Welsh. Neither player wasted much time and the nine frames were completed within 98 minutes.

O'Sullivan knocked in breaks of 84, 109 and 61 while Drago responded with 74, 62 and 52.

O'Sullivan was in first in the final frame with 50, then wrapped it up with 28 after the Maltese player had played a poor positional shot and missed a red on 16.

"Tony is such a talent and it's unfortunate for him to lose when he's playing well," said O'Sullivan, who has never reached the final of this event. "It was tough match but I was having fun. My scoring has always been my biggest asset and that doesn't often let me down."

John Higgins crashed out of the tournament as gifted Finnish player Robin Hull scored a surprise 5-1 victory.

World no. 39 Hull has an excellent record in qualifiers in recent seasons but has rarely revealed his talents in the final stages of ranking events. He will play his first quarter-final today against Mark Williams.

The 28-year-old said: "This is by far the best result of my career. Playing in the big arenas is very different to the qualifiers and it's easy to collapse like a cheap tent against the top players, but I wanted to win today and I enjoyed the match."

The result was another set-back for world No 4 Higgins who has yet to reach the semi-finals of a ranking tournament so far this season.

Other results: Hunter bt Fernandez 5-1; Williams bt Perry 5-2.