Bexhill ace one win from World Championship spot

Jimmy Robertson is one win away from a place in the Betfred World Snooker Championship.

The Bexhill cueman booked his place in the final round of the qualifiers for the sport’s flagship event with a very good 10-4 win over Oliver Lines yesterday (Monday).

World number 39 Robertson will face 71st-ranked Rod Lawler over the best of 19 frames today and tomorrow for the right to join the sport’s top players in the event proper at The Crucible Theatre in Sheffield from Saturday.

Robertson knocked in six fifty-plus breaks and won nine of the last 11 frames to see off 58th-ranked Lines, who whitewashed him 6-0 at the UK Championship before Christmas.

A run of 53 helped give Robertson the opening frame and although Lines took the next two, Robertson reeled off three in a row to lead 4-2 with best breaks of 69 and 76.

Lines pulled one back with a run of 72, but Robertson pocketed the final two frames of the opening session with breaks of 93 and 51 to open up a useful 6-3 advantage.

Robertson began the second session with a 62 to win frame 10. Lines claimed the next to make it 7-4 only for Robertson to clinch the 12th and 13th, the former despite a Lines 56, to move within one of victory at the interval.

The 30-year-old Robertson, who edged out Chinese cueman Cao Yupeng 10-8 in the first round at the weekend, comfortably took frame 14 to seal victory.

Only Lawler now stands between Robertson and a third appearance at The Crucible. The veteran from Liverpool overcame Alan McManus, who defeated Robertson in the final round of qualifying last year, 10-5 after a tough battle yesterday.

The 16 players who come through qualifying at the end of tomorrow will join the world’s top 16, including defending champion Mark Selby and five-time winner Ronnie O’Sullivan, in the event proper.

Mark Davis, the St Leonards-based world number 34, was beaten 10-7 by 17-year-old Chinese rising star Yan Bingtao in the penultimate round of qualifying on Sunday.

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