Ireland’s David Morris moved into the penultimate qualifying round for the Australian Open after beating Lu Ning 5-2 in Crawley on Tuesday.
Morris found himself 2-1 down to the Chinese early on but rattled off four consecutive frames, including a break of 130, to set up a clash with Scotland’s Fraser Patrick.
This is the first season that the Kilkenny cueist will have ranking points to defend after his initial two-year card ended in May.
The 26 year-old will be hoping for a good start to the season as the money earned from the now defunct Wuxi Classic in 2013, in which he reached the last eight, has been erased from his tally.
Morris therefore will be seeking to take advantage of the situation of the Australian Open which has seen several professionals opt out of competing down under.
Elsewhere, it was a pretty routine day for most of the higher seeds coming in at this stage as Mark Joyce, Andrew Higginson, Robbie Williams and Jack Lisowski all comfortably emerged victorious.
It wasn’t a great day for the Q-School graduates as Paul Davison, Eden Sharav, Sydney Wilson and Duane Jones all lost.
However, beaten finalists in Burton Adam Duffy and Zhao Xintong continued their progress with triumphs over Scott Donaldson and Barry Pinches respectively.
Michael Wasley compiled a run of 133 in his 5-1 win over Australia’s own Vinnie Calabrese, which put him in line for the whopping 45-pound high break prize in the qualifiers.
The second qualifying round reaches its conclusion on Wednesday with the likes of Ken Doherty and Joe Swail entering the fold.
