Jimmy White secured successive 4-3 results at the Northern Ireland Open qualifiers to guarantee his involvement in Belfast next month.
The 62 year-old beat Paul Deaville by the odd frame on Saturday in Sheffield and repeated the trick a day later against Jackson Page.
The ten-time ranking event winner compiled breaks of 61 and 50 to see off the challenge of the young Welshman, who has failed to kick on after reaching a maiden ranking event final at the start of the season.
White won just two games during a disappointing 2023/24 campaign but has already tripled that tally this term, winning six out of the ten matches he has played so far.
His reward will be a meeting with one of the top 32 seeds when he participates at the venue stages of the Home Nations series event in October at the Waterfront Hall.
A busy day of action at Ponds Forge, meanwhile, saw several interesting results at the Northern Ireland Open qualifiers.
Stan Moody, who reached the last 16 of the British Open, continued to show his promise with a fine 4-3 defeat of Ben Woollaston.
It was also another impressive triumph for Bulcsu Revesz, who is defying his rookie status with a string of strong performances on the circuit.
On this occasion, the Hungarian thrashed the experienced Robbie Williams 4-0 while compiling breaks of 72 and 53.
Malaysia’s Rory Thor also extended his decent run of form by beating Daniel Wells 4-2.
Among the higher-profile players to advance in the competition were 2006 world champion Graeme Dott, former Masters winner Matthew Stevens, and veteran Welshman Dominic Dale.
Saudi Arabia Masters quarter-finalist Jimmy Robertson and English Open semi-finalist Ishpreet Singh Chadha also progressed in addition to Anthony McGill, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, and Matthew Selt.
There was defeat, however, for Joe Perry against Wang Yuchen with the former’s indifferent run of form dragging him into the fight for tour survival.
Anthony Hamilton is additionally flirting with the pivotal top 64 cut-off point, so a 4-3 loss to Wang Yuchen won’t have done the former German Masters champion much good.
The Northern Ireland Open takes place from October 20-27 at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast.
Northern Ireland Open qualifiers
Round of 128 (bo7)
Results
Ishpreet Singh Chadha 4-1 Florian Nuessle
Michael Holt 4-0 Reanne Evans
Liam Pullen 4-1 Mink Nutcharut
Gong Chenzhi 4-0 Ahmed Aly Elsayed
Duane Jones 4-2 Artemijs Zizins
Alfie Burden 4-3 Mitchell Mann
Haris Tahir 4-3 Zak Surety
Jiang Jun 4-3 Huang Jiahao
Louis Heathcote 4-3 Anton Kazakov
Amir Sarkhosh 4-2 Cheung Ka Wai
Antoni Kowalski 4-3 Hammad Miah
Liam Davies 4-2 Dean Young
Lei Peifan 4-3 Jamie Gardiner
Rory Thor 4-3 Mark Joyce
Chris Totten 4-3 Robbie McGuigan
Long Zehuang 4-3 Haydon Pinhey
Simon Blackwell 4-3 Stuart Carrington
Oliver Lines vs Joshua Cooper (held over)
Kreishh Gurbaxani 4-1 Andrew Higginson
Wang Yuchen 4-1 Andrew Pagett
Jimmy White 4-3 Paul Deaville
Joel Connolly 4-3 Ian Burns
Liam Graham 4-3 Baipat Siripaporn
Manasawin Phetmalaikul 4-3 Ross Muir
Xing Zihao w/o Ken Doherty
Daniel Womersley 4-1 Ben Mertens
Ma Hailong 4-0 Allan Taylor
Bulcsu Revesz 4-3 Iulian Boiko
Stan Moody 4-2 Dylan Emery
Alexander Ursenbacher 4-1 Mostafa Dorgham
Farakh Ajaib 4-3 Julien Leclercq
Bai Yulu w/o Marco Fu
Round of 96 (bo7)
Ishpreet Singh Chadha 4-1 Ashley Carty
Matthew Selt 4-1 Michael Holt
Fan Zhengyi 4-2 Liam Pullen
Matthew Stevens 4-1 Gong Chenzhi
Scott Donaldson 4-0 Duane Jones
Mark Davis 4-2 Alfie Burden
Dominic Dale 4-2 Haris Tahir
Jiang Jun 4-3 David Lilley
Louis Heathcote 4-3 Aaron Hill
Jimmy Robertson 4-0 Amir Sarkhosh
Tian Pengfei 4-0 Antoni Kowalski
Jordan Brown 4-1 Liam Davies
Lei Peifan 4-3 Jamie Jones
Rory Thor 4-2 Daniel Wells
Elliot Slessor 4-2 Chris Tottne
Long Zehuang 4-0 Sanderson Lam
Liu Hongyu 4-1 Simon Blackwell
Ricky Walden vs Lines/Cooper (held over)
Graeme Dott 4-2 Kreishh Gurbaxani
Wang Yuchen 4-2 Joe Perry
Jimmy White 4-3 Jackson Page
Martin O’Donnell 4-0 Joel Connolly
Yuan Sijun 4-0 Liam Graham
He Guoqiang 4-0 Manasawin Phetmalaikul
Jamie Clarke 4-2 Xing Zihao
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 4-0 Daniel Womersley
Ma Hailong 4-3 Anthony Hamilton
Bulcsu Revesz 4-0 Robbie Williams
Stan Moody 4-3 Ben Woollaston
Alexander Ursenbacher 4-3 Xu Si
Anthony McGill 4-2 Farakh Ajaib
David Grace 4-0 Bai Yulu
Featured photo credit: WST
There were some very interesting and tense matches. Two remarkable finishes I saw were Jiang-Hiang and Lei-Gardiner.
Lei Peifan needed 2 snookers in the penultimate frame, and also won the decider on the black to beat his opponent, a 21-year old from Northern Ireland. I suppose the format dictates that the local wildcard players have to play ‘qualifiers’ in Sheffield.
Then there were some extraordinary decisions by Huang Jiahao, who had Jiang Jun in an impossible snooker in the decider, but took a free ball. Perhaps he would have felt bad about winning via 68 points from repeated misses, as he surely would. There was a strange moment when Jiang got his mobile phone to translate a question to the referee. I’m not sure if that’s allowed, but Jiang also had communication issues in Brentwood when the scoreboard kept breaking down and there was some doubt as to the actual score. Jiang has shown great potential in 2024 but is in a real fight to stay on tour.
That’s an interesting one about the phone. I suppose it’s understandable if something important needs to be asked/said.