Stephen Hendry made a winning start to the defence of his European Open title in Torquay on Tuesday night despite a battling performance from opponent Dave Harold. "I went from the comfort zone to the twilight zone," said Hendry after his 5-3 victory at the Palace Hotel.
"I was flying at 4-1 but I missed a pink into the middle on 51 and Dave produced a great clearance for 4-2. I then missed a black off its spot in the next frame, it went a little scrappy and suddenly it was 4-3," he explained.
Harold had knocked in eight reds and eight blacks in frame eight and looked close to going all the way to a 147 maximum break while forcing a deciding frame. However, he fluffed the next red into the yellow pocket and watched in disbelief as the ball rolled along the bottom cushion and into the green bag. Hendry finally killed off Harold's revival with a superb 74 clearance to go with earlier breaks of 78, 98 and 51.
"I was getting ready for the last frame," admitted Hendry, who now takes on Glaswegian Graeme Dott for a place in the quarter-finals of the £250,000 event."Dave always seem to make a real match of it against me and while I beat him convincingly in the world championship one year we are pretty even over the best of nine."
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland's Joe Swail, who is in danger of dropping out of the world's top 16 at the end of the season, picked up an invaluable win when he defeated Mark Davis 5-4. He trailed 4-3 at one stage but won the final two frames by dropping just 26 points. He now faces Peter Ebdon in the second round.
Filed by Amanda Fennelly
