Ireland's Ken Doherty has opened his defence of his Thailand Masters title with a 5-3 win over Joe Perry. The world number four came back from 3-0 down but afterwards expressed his annoyance that the match was shunned by the host broadcasters in favour of Dave Harold's 5-1 defeat of Steve Davis.
"Steve Davis is a legend. He's a fantastic ambassador for snooker and he's done a lot for the game here in Thailand but, after all, he's 17 places lower in the rankings than me. I won the trophy here last year, but it obviously doesn't matter. What do you have to do? You work your backside off to win tournaments and get the top of the game and you still aren't picked for the match table," said Doherty.
Elsewhere Northern Ireland's Joe Swail whitewashed Hong Kong's Marco Fu 5-0. Swail will now play John Higgins in the last 16 while Doherty will face Dave Harold.
Filed by Tom Grealis
