Williams converted a 6-3 overnight lead into a 10-4 win over debutant Antoni Kowalski, while Xiao maintained control throughout to see off Zhou Yuelong 10-6.
Williams pulls clear with authority
Kowalski’s journey to Sheffield had been one of the stories of qualifying, but the step up in class ultimately told. The 22-year-old later admitted he had “run out of steam” on debut, and against Williams’ experience, there was little room for recovery.
The Welshman was not at his most fluent early in the session, and a loose safety allowed Kowalski to narrow the gap. But Williams responded in typically clinical fashion, restoring control with a break of 65 before gradually tightening his grip on the match.
The decisive blow came in the 13th frame. After Kowalski faltered with a missed red, Williams punished him with the only century of the contest, a composed 115 that all but ended resistance at 9-4.
There was a final flicker of tension in the closing frame, with Williams missing the pink after a promising clearance, but he recovered to dispatch a superb long black and seal victory.
“Antoni is a fantastic potter -- I can’t make the long pots, like he does, anymore,” Williams said afterwards.
“I knew it would be tough for him on his debut, so I tried to keep things tight and play to my strengths. He showed a bit of inexperience, but he’ll learn from this and get better. The scoreline looks clearer than it was -- he could easily have won three or four more frames.”
Williams now advances to a meeting with Barry Hawkins.
Xiao responds to pressure to beat Zhou
On the neighbouring table, Xiao’s victory over Zhou was less straightforward than the scoreline suggests, but no less deserved.
Holding a narrow overnight advantage, Xiao quickly extended his lead with breaks of 52 and 62, establishing a cushion that Zhou struggled to erode. Yet the match turned briefly volatile before the interval in a dramatic, 49-minute frame.
Xiao appeared to have done enough after potting brown to leave Zhou needing snookers, only for his opponent to respond with a clever trap on the blue. What followed was a prolonged duel that eventually went to the final black, which Zhou coolly dispatched to stay in touch.
The response from Xiao was emphatic. Showing the composure required at this level, he brushed off the setback immediately after the interval, compiling breaks of 115 and 128 to reassert control and effectively settle the contest.
Zhou’s resistance faded from there, and although chances came and went, he was unable to mount a sustained challenge. Xiao, by contrast, remained composed, closing out the match with minimal fuss to secure his place in the second round, where he will face either Shaun Murphy or Fan Zhengyi.