John Higgins was pleased with his performance after thumping Bradford native David Grace 10-3 to reach the second round of the World Snooker Championship for the 25th time.

It was a battle of the Saltaire Bar at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, with Grace compering a Higgins exhibition at the Shipley venue last month.

Grace is a quality player in his own right, but he had to win three qualifiers just to reach the first round, whereas Higgins was automatically given a place in the main draw as world number 11 and the 10th seed.

The four-time world champion was therefore the overwhelming favourite to beat his Bradford opponent, even more so when he began this afternoon’s session with a commanding 7-2 lead.

He needed just an hour to book his place in the last 16, where he will meet either Kyren Wilson or Ryan Day.

The 47-year-old Scot won the first frame of the session with a break of 114 and looked to be cruising in the second at 48-0 up before Grace hit back with a phenomenal counter clearance to make it 8-3.

Higgins won the next frame with a break of 97 to edge closer to victory before closing things out with a classy 124 to win 10-3.

Higgins said: "Coming into today it would have taken a bit of a collapse from me not to get over the line.

"But I was pleased with the way I was hitting the ball today. I'm feeling good about scoring. If I get my chance I feel as if I can go on and do some breaks here, which I think you always need to do here.

"You need to have sessions here against the best players where you can go on a bit of a run and knock in some breaks.

"And I think I'm capable of that this year, so onwards and upwards."

Grace paid tribute to Higgins, saying: "He's one of the all-time greats, full stop.

"He was just hitting it so nicely. He was getting the white to talk, basically. He was getting it to wherever he wanted it. That's the sign that you're hitting it well."