SEVEN times world snooker champion Stephen Hendry rolled back the years today with an impressive display to knock Neil Robertson out of this year’s Welsh Open.

Hendry, who won the first ever Welsh Open tournament twenty years ago and dominated the sport in the 1990s, produced one of his best results in recent times to brush aside the Australian 4-1 at the Newport Centre today.

With the game tied at 1-1, the Scot won a crucial re-spotted black in the third frame to take a 2-1 lead. Then frame-winning breaks of 67 and 86 in the fourth and fifth frame respectively sealed a surprise win over Robertson who won the Masters at the beginning of this year.

Elsewhere, world number one Mark Selby survived a huge scare against 82nd ranked Sam Baird winning a deciding frame after coming back from 3-2 down.

Another relieved man today is Welshman Mark Williams who was in real danger of going out when his opponent Andy Hicks took a shock 3-2 lead. But the former world champion gritted his way out of trouble to make it through to the last 16.

Stephen Lee beat Michael Holt 4-1 to book his place in the next round. Lee will be hoping to equal if not better his run in the German Masters earlier this month where he reached the semi-final stages.

And both Martin Gould and Stuart Bingham recorded victories beating Peter Ebdon and Mark King respectively to progress to the next stage.

Wednesday sees the return of German Masters winner Ronnie O’Sullivan in action against Marco Fu and Ken Doherty will hope to repeat Steve Davis’ success on Monday when he plays Mark Allen for a place in the second round.