Chasing the German dream

If the opening exchanges of this year's German Masters were dominated by the so-called favourites for the title, then the chasing pack has surely replied.

Picture by Monique Limbos

Day two at the Tempodrom in Berlin was all about victories for the lesser stars.

Barry Hawkins - recently back in the top 16 and chasing his second ranking title - was brilliant en route to beating Mark Allen 5-2.

His performance was compared to one snooker fan on Twitter as that of "an angel". He played smoothly and fluently backing up the old cliche that on his day he is capable of beating anyone.

Michael Holt  had a busy but successful day. He beat Mark Williams 5-1 and Kurt Maflin 5-3 to progress to the quarter-finals.

He set the high break of the tournament with an impressive 144 against two-time world champion Williams and played like we all know he can when finds his form and doesn't overthink things.

Picture by Monique Limbos

The good results didn't end there for the the Nottingham boys. Anthony Hamilton ensured world number two Judd Trump wasn't let off the hook two days running, as he edged past him 5-4.

Trump is struggling badly for form and it looks as if his fear factor has gone missing. Hamilton is a confident scorer and the kind of player you'd expect to cash in on a top player slightly out of the swing.

Mark King did well to beat Stephen Maguire 5-0 but lost later in he day to Matthew Stevens. Peter Lines continued his good run with the defeat of Ken Doherty, and the chances of a winner from outside of the usual winner's circle isn' out of the question, although there will be more tough tests ahead.

Neil Robertson has been moaning about the state of the outer tables at the venue but has still navigated his way comfortably through so far.

Mark Selby is in a rich vein of form and is the favourite in the other half of the draw.

And so we go on...

Quarter-final draw:

Carter or Hamilton v Holt
Robertson v Dott or Murphy
Lines or Fu v Stevens
Hawkins v Ding or Selby