Mark Selby beats Sam Craigie in cagey second round affair at Northern Ireland Open

Mark Selby beat Sam Craigie 4-2 in a cagey second round match at the Northern Ireland Open.

It was a stop-start match as both players made errors and there was plenty of safety play, with Selby ultimately coming out on top.

He will play Hammad Miah or Lu Ning in the last 32.

The opening two frames, which took just under an hour, were shared with Selby winning the second despite needing six attempts to get out of a snooker.

Craigie had opportunities to win the next two frames but failed to take them. He showed his frustration when missing a red in the centre pocket which was punished by Selby who went 3-1 up.

A huge fluke let Craigie in at the start of the fourth frame and this time he made a superb break of 111, which was the only century of the match.

Craigie was unlucky in the early part of the next frame when he tried to split the reds open twice with the blue.

Both times, he was left with nothing easy and his missed red to the middle let Selby in to make a break of 58.

Earlier on Tuesday, Li Hang upset Jack Lisowski 4-2, whilst John Higgins and Neil Robertson progressed with 4-2 victories of their own.

Defending champion Mark Allen is back in action at 19:00 UK time against Chen Zifan, whilst Mark Williams plays Alexander Ursenbacher later tonight.

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