Defending champion Neil Robertson made a dramatic exit from the Coral UK Championship as his comeback against Graeme Dott in the fourth round came up just short.

Robertson looked to be on his way to an embarrassing loss when he trailed the former world champion 5-0 at York's Barbican Centre, leaving Dott needing just one more frame for victory.

But Robertson dug in and reeled off five straight frames to level matters and force a decider.

Having seemed completely out of sorts, the Australian managed five successive breaks of more than 50, including centuries in frames seven and nine.

Robertson was the favourite going into the final frame but Dott, who had racked up only 48 points in those five frames, finally clinched a 6-5 victory with a break of 56 to book a quarter-final against Stuart Bingham.

It is the first time Dott has reached the last eight at the UK Championship since his world title-winning year, and he has never been beyond the semi-finals.

Earlier, Anthony McGill potted the biggest win of his life and a first quarter-final appearance at the tournament as he toppled fellow Scot John Higgins in a thriller.

The 23-year-old Glaswegian looked to have let the occasion of going head to head with his snooker idol get to him when he surrendered a 4-1 lead and allowed Higgins to pull level at five frames each.

But Higgins could not take the chances that came his way in the deciding frame, and McGill cut in the final red before clearing to the pink to clinch a 6-5 win.

McGill has been tipped for a major breakthrough as Scotland's next big thing but has only one notable quarter-final appearance behind him, at the Indian Open last season.

He could face Ronnie O'Sullivan next, with the four-time UK champion first having a Thursday evening assignment against Matthew Selt to tackle.

Despite flickers of excellence from Higgins, who made a break of 129 to force the decider, McGill put his win down to the 39-year-old's inconsistency.

"I think it was more to do with John's lack of form really," McGill said on BBC2.

"He gave me a lot of chances there and usually he doesn't so I was kind of lucky today.

"I heard he was playing really well, and thought 'here we go' but he must have left it in the dressing room."

There were no more heroics from Blackpool teenager James Cahill as his breakthrough week ended in a 6-2 defeat by Mark Davis.

The world number 100 saw off Ding Junhui 6-5 on Tuesday evening but the 18-year-old was never ahead against Davis.

Cahill pulled it back to 3-2 after losing three of the opening four frames, but breaks of 63 in frame six and 68 in frame seven helped Davis over the line.

Ninth-ranked Bingham had a remarkably easy time of it against Ricky Walden, the recent winner of the International Championship.

Bingham reached the semi-finals in York last year, beating O'Sullivan before falling to Robertson, and he coasted to a 6-0 victory over Walden.