Snooker:Former world champion Ken Doherty was delighted to win a low-scoring contest with Scotland's Stephen Maguire in the Australian Goldfields Open in Bendigo today.
Doherty’s highest break of the match was just 67, but other runs of 64 and 61 were enough for him to win 5-2 as Maguire could only muster a top score of 50.
“I played pretty well and I’m delighted to have beaten such a tough opponent,” said the Dubliner. “It’s been such a long time since I’ve beaten someone of Stephen’s standard, a top-eight player.
“I can’t remember when it would’ve been but it wasn’t last season. I beat Neil Robertson to get to the quarter-finals in the Shanghai Masters the year before last and beat Mark Selby in the Grand Prix.
“But this is a good start for me, not just the win but the nature of it and that’s what gives you the confidence. If you struggle to a win you don’t feel so good but I won pretty well and closed it out well.
“I’ve been staying with my wife’s family in Melbourne and it’s the first time they’ve seen me play live.”
The scoring was equally mediocre in the match between another former world champion, Mark Williams, and Barry Pinches.
Both players managed just one break above 50 in the match and after securing a 5-2 win, Williams said: “It was really tough and the way I played was just awful, appalling and I don’t know why it was so bad.
“We both dragged each other down. I was missing everything and he was missing everything. I have no chance in my next match if I play like that.”
In today’s other early first-round matches, Liang Wenbo showed that good scoring was possible with breaks of 71, 111, 51 and 120 in a 5-4 victory over Matthew Stevens.
The Chinese star was on course for a maximum in frame seven after potting 15 reds and 15 blacks, but ran out of position from the final black and missed the yellow.
Mark Selby produced a superb comeback to beat Joe Perry, the former World Championship finalist trailing 3-0 and 68-13 in the fourth frame before fighting back to win 5-3.
“Joe was brilliant in the first three and a half frames and I should’ve gone 4-0 down. If I had then I would have been out of the tournament,” said Selby. “But I managed to grind myself back into it.”