DAY THREE of the Wuxi Classic produced yet more shock results as more top seeds suffered first round exits.

This year’s World Championship semi-finalist and world-number-four Stephen Maguire was victim to the day’s most surprising result after he lost 5-4 to qualifier Rod Lawler – who is provisionally ranked 65th in the world.

The result has to be one of Lawler’s best in his playing career and his recent run of form is remarkable given the fact that a month ago he was competing in Q School in a bid to regain his professional status after being relegated from the main tour.

Lawler had to complete the win the hard way after Maguire came back from 4-2 down to level at 4-4 and force a deciding frame. But Lawler kept his nerve at the crucial time and a winning break under pressure clinched one of his greatest wins.

World-number-six Shaun Murphy also bowed out of the competition early suffering a 5-1 defeat to Ken Doherty. The Irishman raced into a surprising 3-0 lead before Murphy got off the mark winning a scrappy fourth frame.

But after the mid-session interval Doherty sailed through to the last 16 stage winning the next two frames to pull off a big win against the Sheffield man.

The day’s other surprise was seeing Stephen Lee losing out to Marcus Campbell 5-1. A win for the Scot against Fergal O’Brien tomorrow will see him secure a quarter-final spot in a major ranking event for the first time in his career.

World-number-two Judd Trump had no such trouble reaching the last 16 beating Welshman Dominic Dale 5-1 and Mark Williams also sailed through to the next stage whitewashing Leicester’s Tom Ford 5-0.

Robert Milkins will have aspirations of repeating his World Open semi-final run last season after he beat Andrew Higginson 5-3 to make the second round. Zhu Yinghui could not repeat his wildcard round success on Monday and was given a harsh lesson in a 5-0 defeat to Ricky Walden.

Fellow wildcard entrant and 14-year-old Zhou Yuelong also suffered defeat losing 5-1 to former world champion Graeme Dott.