Former world champion Neil Robertson is on the cusp of returning to the Crucible as he finished his first session against Zak Surety 7-2 up in World Championship qualifying.
Robertson, triumphant at the Crucible in 2010, has struggled for form this season and has found himself outside of the top 16.
That forced the Australian to go through qualifying sitting down in 36th in the one-year ranking.
In his first match of qualifying he faces Surety and after the first session has roared into a 7-2 lead.
Robertson took the first six frames in a row including a ton before Surety could get onto the board. However Robertson responded with a mammoth break of 134 to move to seven frames whilst Surety took the final one of the session.
The winner of this game will face either Jamie Jones or Alfie Burden in the final round of qualifying.
Elsewhere David Gilbert, a former World Championship semi-finalist, is also in control of his game against David Lilley 7-2. Like Robertson Gilbert also hit two centuries.
Another former Crucible semi-finalist, Si Jiahui is having a far tighter time of it with his game against Ben Mertens currently standing at 5-4 in his favour.
The pair constantly exchanged frames, with Si winning the first two before Mertens levelled up and then winning one each, including a 124 for Mertens.
But Si then won two in a row to ensure he would take the first session lead but Mertens won the final frame to make sure that that lead would just be one.
In the upcoming afternoon session, live on Eurosport and discovery+, will see Hossein Vafaei resume 6-3 up against Marco Fu amongst others.
World Snooker Championship qualifying scores Monday April 15
- Jame Jones 5-4 Alfie Burden
- Neil Robertson 7-2 Zak Surety
- Si Jiahui 5-4 Ben Mertens
- David Gilbert 7-2 David Lilley
- Ryan Day 5-4 John Astley
- Wu Yize 4-4 Tian Pengfei
- Xiao Guodong 7-1 Sanderson Lam
- Joe Perry 2-5 Scott Donaldson