STUART BINGHAM hailed his “best performance of the season” as he hammered Thanawat Tirapongpaiboon 6-0 in the Coral UK Snooker Championship first round.

Last year’s semi-finalist was in sublime form, with breaks of 96, 102, 84, 74, 91 and 61 as he made light work of his Thai opponent.

“I had a 60-plus break in every frame,” Bingham said. “The table played lovely, very similar to the Champion of Champions - it was that good.

“I was ready for a tough game. Thanawat has been round a few years and I couldn’t believe how low ranked he was. I thought he was in the 64.

“If I can carry on playing like that, someone is going to play really well to beat me.”

Earlier, Peter Ebdon had to call on all his grit and determination to edge past Ross Muir 6-5.

The 2006 UK champion at York trailed 2-0 and looked out of sorts but dug deep against the 19-year-old to set up a last-64 clash with Kurt Maflin, who beat Chris Norbury 6-1, on Sunday.

He said: “That was really tough. All credit to Ross. He played really, really well. The way he started off the first two frames, I thought I was playing Stephen Hendry at his best.

“He was just incredible. Those first three or four frames, it was like anything that could go wrong did go wrong.

“You just had to keep focused out there. It is quite bizarre the number of things that were happening out there but that’s snooker.

“You never know what you are going to get. It’s tough out there. All these lads can play. I have been working hard. Generally, I am in reasonable form. I just have to take one match at a time and, hopefully, I can progress in the tournament.”