China's Lyu Haotian trailed sixth seed Barry Hawkins 5-3 after their first session of the second round match at the Snooker World Championship on Thursday.
The 20-year-old Lyu, the lowest-ranked player at Crucible this year, is the only Chinese left in the last 16 besides former world number one Ding Junhui .
Hawkins, runner-up in 2013 and a semifinalist on three other occasions, was off to a tremendous start as breaks of 91, 71, 64 and 129 put him 4-0 ahead.
Lyu, who knocked out Marco Fu in the first round on his Crucible debut, took the fifth frame with a 73 then Hawkins went 5-1 ahead with a 103. In a high quality session, Lyu responded with 95 to take the seventh frame and a 42 clearance to win the eighth.
Elsewhere, Judd Trump narrowly avoided a shock defeat in a thrilling clash with first timer Chris Wakelin, taking a final frame decider to win 10-9.
Anthony McGill stormed back from four frames behind to stun Ryan Day 10-8 in another first round clash and will take on third-ranked Ding on Saturday.
In another best-of-25 frames second round match, Mark Allen took a 5-3 lead over Joe Perry.
