Tian Pengfei. Picture by Monique Limbos

CHINA’s Tian Pengfei recorded the biggest win of his career earlier today by knocking world number one Neil Robertson out of the German Masters.

Pengfei, ranked 61 places below the recently crowned UK Championship winner, put in one of his best performances on the baize to date to beat the Australian 5-1.

The world number 62 hit breaks of 91 and 75 to give him an early 2-0 lead before he won a third straight frame with a break of 57.

And a stunned Robertson was left with it all to after Pengfei went into the interval 4-0 clear – just one away from causing the biggest shock of the tournament so far.

Robertson pulled a frame back with a break of 89 after the restart but Pengfei reached the winning line by clearing the table from the final red in frame six.

It is the first time in four years since Pengfei has reached the last 16 stage of a major ranking event going back to the China Open in 2010. He did reach the semi-finals of the Wuxi Classic later in the same year but that was before the event was upgraded to major ranking status.

A delighted Pengfei told World Snooker today’s win was his best yet.

“I have beaten Ronnie O’Sullivan before but I was a wild card in that event, whereas this is a ranking event so it is my best win so far. I was trying not to think about the result, I just played the match frame by frame.”

Meanwhile, Robertson was critical of the table and said two kicks he got during play left him frustrated. He wrote on Twitter afterwards:

Elsewhere, Ding Junhui cruised into the last 16 with a 5-1 win over Mark Williams to set up a potential clash against John Higgins should he beat Dominic Dale tonight.

Dechawat Poomjaeng failed to follow up his shock win over Ali Carter on Wednesday after suffering a 5-4 defeat to Xiao Guodong. Ryan Day also came through a final frame decider to knock out Barry Hawkins.

Other players to make it through to the last 16 are Anthony Hamilton, Jamie Burnett and Alan McManus.

Earlier today Judd Trump, Shaun Murphy, Stephen Maguire and Matthew Stevens won their first round matches with comprehensive 5-1 wins.