O'Sullivan has fallen down the rankings to number 16 in the world and went into the tournament needing to pick up points to ensure he retains his automatic place in April's World Championship.

He went into the mid-session interval facing the possibility of a whitewash and was within one ball of defeat in frame six, but dug deep to reach the second round with a 5-4 success.

Higginson led 2-0 after breaks of 67 and 80, the latter seeing him miss the 11th red of a 147 attempt.

He added the third frame and it was 4-0 at the interval after Higginson prevailed in a safety battle on the final pink.

Chance

O'Sullivan finally got on the board with an 86 in the first frame back - though not before leaving Higginson a chance which he passed up by missing a tricky black.

Higginson racked up 54 in the next before a kick and two unlucky positional shots ended the break at 63, when any colour would have left O'Sullivan needing snookers.

To make matters worse, he carelessly left a long red for his opponent and the three-time world champion cleared superbly to come back to 4-2.

A 60 break cut the deficit to one and he then levelled before taking a 56-0 lead in the decider, breaking down when he went for a difficult red in search of a maximum.

Higginson made only 20 before missing a difficult mid-length red and O'Sullivan got over the line for a vital win.

O'Sullivan's second-round match will pit him against Joe Perry, who also went the distance to beat Ali Carter 5-4.

Carter came from 2-0 and 3-1 down to level and moved ahead for the first time at 4-3 after a 129, the highest break of the tournament so far. But Perry levelled and then edged a scrappy last frame to progress.

World number one Mark Selby inflicted a 5-0 whitewash on China's Liu Song and will face Graeme Dott, who also progressed without dropping a frame at the expense of James Wattana.

Matthew Stevens beat Craig Steadman 5-1 to set up a clash with Masters winner Neil Robertson, who earlier beat Marcus Campbell 5-2.

Earlier, rookie Yu Delu caused a major upset by knocking out Ding Junhui in the first round.

The all-Chinese contest went the way of 24-year-old Yu, who surged into a 3-0 lead before holding his nerve to clinch a 5-3 victory.

World number nine Ding has had a disappointing season to date and was again far from his best in Berlin where breaks of 68 and 56 from Yu carried the underdog, 73rd in the rankings, to his surprising success.

Cruised

In no way surprising was the way in which Judd Trump cruised through his opening match, beating Pickering's Paul Davison 5-1.

Davison won a wild-card match on Wednesday to reach the opening round but was outclassed by UK champion Trump who had breaks of 50, 75, 60 and 81.

Bristolian Trump followed up his UK title in York with a run to the Masters semi-finals, and said after seeing off Davison: "I want to keep my momentum going at this event."

There was little time for Trump to rest though, as his second-round match against Antrim's Mark Allen, the man he beat in the UK final, was scheduled for Thursday evening.

Allen looked to be on his way out when he trailed Tom Ford 4-1, and even after getting back to level terms his hard work seemed set to go unrewarded.

Ford left Allen needing a snooker in the deciding frame, but the Northern Irishman managed to come from the brink of defeat to set up his clash with Trump.