World No.1 Mark Selby advanced to the second round of the World Championships but admitted he will need to find his A game and quickly if he is to win a maiden Crucible crown.
Selby looked to be cruising into the last 16 when he raced into a 5-0 lead on Tuesday night against a nervous Matthew Selt, who was making his debut in the main draw in Sheffield.
But the qualifier soon found his feet and at one point on Wednesday evening had closed to six frames to four.
But that was as close as Selt got as Selby, who is chasing snooker's Triple Crown this season of the UK, Masters and world titles, reeled off the last four frames for a 10-4 win and a date with Barry Hawkins in the next round.
It took Selby until the 11th frame of the match to notch his first half century against Selt and the Leicester cueman admitted he will need to be firing on all cylinders if he is to capture the biggest prize in the sport.
"This is the best year I have ever had in terms of results but strangely not one of my best in terms of performances," he said.
"I have won the UK and the Masters without playing my best snooker, relying on my B game at times.
"It is nice to know that I have that option to go to if I'm struggling but I don't think you can win a tournament like the worlds playing like that.
"There are too many long matches, the sessions are too long that you will need to find a bit more than that to win this title.
"If you look at what Ronnie (O'Sullivan) did last year, he raised his game in one session of each match and hopefully I can do that as well."
Only three men in history have won snooker's holy trinity of titles in the same year – Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry and Mark Williams.
And while Selby admits he cannot help but dream of joining those illustrious names, the 29-year-old insists he is not feeling any added pressure at this year's event.
"I put a lot of pressure on myself anyway so I don't feel any more because of the Triple Crown," he added.
"Of course it is in the back of my mind but for the moment I just need to take it one game at a time.
"This is such a great venue and coming here even on Tuesday in the first session I felt nervous despite having played here so many times.
"I was lucky really that Matthew was playing for the first time out there, he struggled at the start but after that he showed in patches what he can do."
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