ANTHONY McGILL is still in the hunt to cause a major World Snooker Championship upset after making a solid start to his second-round clash with Mark Selby in Sheffield.

The Glaswegian potter is locked at 4-4 with defending champion Selby ahead of the match's resumption on Friday morning.

At one point McGill led 2-0 and also looked poised to end the session 5-3 to the good, but missed the final black to gift Selby frame eight.

The Scot, long considered one of snooker's brightest prospects, burst into the public consciousness with a dramatic 10-9 victory over countryman Stephen Maguire last weekend - arguably the biggest upset of the first round.

The 24-year-old admitted afterwards that playing the defending champion in a best-of-25 encounter in round two was a dream draw and that assessment looked spot-on as he made an ideal start at the Crucible Theatre.

Both men had chances in a scrappy opening frame, but McGill's break of 30 eventually proved enough and he looked even more impressive in the next as a run of 63 handed him a 2-0 lead.

The youngster showed no signs of being overawed by the occasion and his apparent comfort on the big stage is a major reason why five-time world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan has tipped him to be a future winner at the Crucible.

Facing Selby, who beat O'Sullivan 18-14 to lift the trophy for the first time in 2014, can only be beneficial for his development and the Englishman demonstrated why he is considered the grittiest player in the game to win three frames on the trot and build a 3-2 advantage.

The world No.1 hit a half century in each of those and looked set to establish a healthy lead over the man ranked 31 places below him.

But McGill stopped the rot with a fluent run of 74 before posting a contribution of 73 to move 4-3 ahead.

Selby's 54 then put him in pole position in the last frame of the session, but the man nicknamed "Licence to Thrill" by snooker MC Rob Walker fought back, leaving himself needing just the final black for a two-frame advantage.

But his pot wobbled in the jaws of the pocket, allowing his 31-year-old opponent to steal in and level things up at four frames apiece.

The pair resume at 10am on Friday morning before playing to a finish at 7pm that evening in what promises to be an enthralling day of snooker.

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