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ENGLAND’S world No.7 Shaun Murphy cruised through his opening round match at the $500,000 Australian Goldfields Snooker Open in Bendigo on Wednesday.
Murphy brushed past countryman Jack Lisowski in emphatic style, winning 5-0.
Murphy - nicknamed “The Magician” - won the opening frame 62-45 and then showed plenty of tricks in scorching his way through the remaining four, winning 90-0, 103-0, 107-8 and 102-1, at the Bendigo Stadium.
Murphy’s win included a century break of 103 in the third frame.
Murphy’s round two assignment will be a clash with Mark Davis on Thursday night.
Also on Wednesday, Scotland’s Alan McManus won a hard-fought contest with England’s Joe Perry that went the full distance.
McManus gained the early ascendancy in the contest when he led 3-1 and later 4-2.
However, Perry fought back into the contest with 56-9 and 67-17 wins in the seventh and eighth frames to tie the contest up at four frames apiece.
With the game headed into a deciding ninth frame, it was McManus who prevailed 68-45 to move forward to a round two battle with world No.6 Judd Trump.
Trump proved too good for Rory McLeod in a 5-2 win.
Underdog McLeod, ranked No.54 in the world, was in the contest early when the game was locked up at two frames apiece.
However, the remainder of the match was all one-way traffic as Trump powered away, winning the last three frames 93-5, 124-12 and 67-4.
Meanwhile, Peter Ebdon kept his hopes alive of winning his first title in Bendigo, while denying Barry Hawkins the chance of winning a second crown.
In a rematch of their 2012 grand final that Hawkins won, Ebdon reversed the result, prevailing 5-2.
Ebdon burst out of the blocks, winning the first three frames 88-1, 69-11 and 81-0 to take a stranglehold on the contest.
Hawkins got it back to 4-2, before Ebdon wrapped it up 85-60 in the seventh frame.