Mark Williams eked out a narrow lead over Judd Trump after the first session of their Tour Championship quarter-final.
While Williams was match sharp, Trump looked a little rusty and fell 3-0 behind to the Welshman.
Trump improved after the interval but Williams took the final frame to secure a 5-3 lead ahead of their concluding session on Thursday evening.
World No. 2 Trump crafted and squandered a host of chances in the opening frame and despite leading by 50 points at one stage, Williams picked his pocket after a battle on the colours.
The scrappy nature of the opener was put into the memory banks as Williams doubled his lead with an excellent 85.
Like the opener, Trump somehow lost the third having seemed certain to win it.
Williams required a snooker with pink and black on the table. He laid a couple of traps but Trump made the escape on each occasion.
The Welshman put distance between the pink and the cue ball, but Trump had a clear sight of his target. Inexplicably, he played a shot at almost dead weight and it slid past the pink, handing Williams the penalties he required.
A couple of shots later, Williams pulled off a superb double and landed perfectly on the black to snatch the frame.
Only Trump will know why he played the shot he did, but he put it to the back of his mind as he took the fourth to get on the board.
The frame upon the resumption saw Trump miss a black off its spot and squander a lead as Williams extended his advantage to three frames.
Trump’s best passage of play came in the sixth as a run of 81 secured the frame and he took a scrappy seventh.
Williams was the better player in the session and a break of 71 earned him a lead in the race to 10, with the players to return to the Manchester Central Convention Complex on Thursday evening.