Jordan Brown suffered an agonising exit at the final qualifying round stage of the World Snooker Championship at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield.
The Antrim man, who had beaten Dominic Dale in the penultimate qualifying round, lost 10-7 to Si Jiahui of China.
In the opening session Brown had taken an early 2-0 lead, which was quickly canceled out by the mid-session interval. The Antrim man, bidding to reach the Crucible for the second time, regained the lead with a break of 67, but Jiahui hit a purple patch and went 4-3 ahead with runs of 115 and 76. Brown leveled at 4-4 only for the Chinese player to take the interval lead with breaks of 57 amd 68.
He stretched his lead to two frames for the first time on the resumption of play but Brown took three of the next four frames to level at 7-7.
However, it was Jiahui who took charge from there with breaks of 90 and 54 wrapping up victory
Crucible specialist and former semi-finalist Anthony McGill booked his ticket with a 10-6 win over Cao Yupeng, while Matthew Selt beat former champion Graeme Dott by the same score and Ricky Walden edged out Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in a decider.
FINAL QUALIFYING ROUND
TUESDAY’S RESULTS
Anthony McGill (Sco) bt Cao Yupeng (Chi) 10-6
Matthew Selt (Eng) bt Graeme Dott (Sco) 10-6
Wu Yize (Chi) bt Chris Wakelin (Eng) 10-8
Fan Zhengyi (Chi) bt Stephen Maguire (Sco) 10-6
Si Jiahui (Chi) bt Jordan Brown (NI) 10-7
Ricky Walden (Eng) bt Thepchaiya Un-Nooh (Tha) 10-9
Noppon Saengkham (Tha) 9 Zhang Anda (Chi) 9
Jak Jones (Eng) 8 Barry Hawkins (Eng) 8
WEDNESDAY’S MATCHES (11am & 5pm)
Ryan Day (Wal) v Scott Donaldson (Sco)
Xu Si (Chi) v Pang Junxu (Chi)
Anthony Hamilton (Eng) v Jimmy Robertson (Eng)
Elliot Slessor (Eng) v Zhou Yuelong (Chi)
Hossein Vafaei (Ira) v Jackson Page (Wal)
Andrew Higginson (Eng) v David Grace (Eng)
Mark Davis (Eng) v Joe Perry (Eng)
Matthew Stevens (Wal) v David Gilbert (Eng)
