AARON Hill won his first match in qualifying for the forthcoming World Championship at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield.
The 22-year-old from Cork beat Daniel Womersley of England 10-3 and will now face another Englishman, Matthew Selt.
That match starts on Sunday afternoon and finishes on Monday afternoon and should the world number 62 win he will go through to the final qualifying round, and the chance to earn a debut at the Crucible.
Womersley had stayed with Hill in the early stages but from 4-3 up Hill reeled off six frames on the spin with breaks of 50, 70, 57 and 79.
Ken Doherty will only be at the Crucible this year in his capacity as a commentator after he felt the full force of a Marco Fu fightback.
1997 World champion Doherty built a 5-4 lead in the best-of-19 encounter, but after the first two frames of the evening session were shared, Fu turned on the scoring power to win five frames in a row for a 10-6 win, helped by breaks of 97, 136, 61 and 104
Antrim’s Jordan Brown starts on Saturday against Jenson Kendrick.
