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LONDON: China's Ding Junhui and Hong Kong's Marco Fu both suffered crushing first round defeats in the Masters snooker tournament at Wembley on Sunday.
Ding lost 6-1 to Mark Selby and Fu went down 6-2 to former world champion Peter Ebdon.
Ding, who last month won the UK Championship - snooker's second most prestigious tournament - by beating world champion John Higgins in the final, was swept aside as Selby raced into a 5-0 lead.
The most successful Asian player in professional snooker history, Ding only avoided the embarrassment of a whitewash when Selby failed to pot what would have been the clinching ball in the sixth frame.
That gave Ding a consolation frame before Selby wrapped up the match in the seventh.
Both the first two frames were relatively competitive, with Ding compiling a break of 42 in the second only for a mistake on the blue to let Selby in.
Fu won the first two frames against Ebdon and was looking good in the third but missed a brown which let the Englishman in for a frame-winning break of 27.
Ebdon, renowned for his safety play, fought back and, following a scrappy fifth frame, was 3-2 in front.
From then on Ebdon found his touch with a succession of fluent breaks and might have finished the match with a century before missing a pink.
Selby will now face either Higgins or Mark Allen in the quarter-finals with Ebdon up against the winner of the match between Ronnie O'Sullivan and Australia's Neil Robertson.
Wildcard Jimmy White, appearing in front of his London home crowd at Wembley, plays later Sunday in a preliminary round match against Mark King, with the 'Whirlwind' seeking his first Masters title 26 years after he won the tournament. - AFP/de
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