Doherty under pressure in Sheffield

Snooker : Former champion Ken Doherty looks poised to make a shock early exit from the World Championship after losing the first…

Snooker: Former champion Ken Doherty looks poised to make a shock early exit from the World Championship after losing the first session of his match with China's Liang Wenbo 7-2.

Liang is making his Crucible debut after winning four matches in qualifying but showed no nerves as he rattled in breaks of 77, 58, 68 and 95 to storm within three frames of a famous victory.

Graeme Dott, meanwhile, suffered his 16th straight defeat to crash out. Dott, who contemplated not playing at the Crucible after being diagnosed with depression, lost 10-7 to Joe Perry in the first round.

The Scot has not won a single match since last August and resumed today 5-4 behind Perry, a quarter-finalist here in 2004.

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Perry took the first frame with a break of 104 but Dott won a scrappy affair in the next and then rattled in a break of 126, missing the blue when looking set for a total clearance of 144.

In a high-scoring encounter, Perry hit straight back with a break of 132, the highest of the tournament so far, despite missing the final black off its spot.

Perry was scoring heavily whenever given the chance and breaks of 63 and 88 took him 9-6 ahead and just one frame away from a last-16 clash with Stuart Bingham, who knocked out Steve Davis in the first round.

Dott refused to go down without a fight and nicked a scrappy 16th frame on the pink after Perry had missed two good chances to seal victory, but Perry finally scrambled over the line in the next, taking it 65-53 on the pink.