Davis earns World Championship seeding

Mark Davis will be among the seeded players at the Dafabet World Championship for the very first time

The St Leonards cueman was 12th in the latest world rankings issued on Monday - the seeding cut-off point for the sport’s blue riband event.

Davis is three places inside the all-important top 15 who will gain automatic entry for the World Championship, which will take place at The Crucible

Theatre in Sheffield from April 19-May 5.

It means that Davis, a professional since 1991, will avoid having to go through the nerve-jangling qualifiers and will face a player from outside the top 15 of the rankings in the first round.

The 41-year-old memorably upset four-time world champion John Higgins in the first round last year before bowing out in the last 16 - a stage he has never yet gone beyond - to Stuart Bingham.

Davis suffered his ninth deciding frame defeat in ranking events this season at the Wyldecrest Homes Players Championship Grand Final last Wednesday night.

He was edged out 4-3 in the first round by an on-song world number 14 Joe Perry, who fashioned four breaks of 70 or more including a century at Preston’s Guild Hall.

Runs of 70 and 86 gave Perry a 2-0 lead only for Davis to level at 2-2 with a 39 and 48. Perry edged in front again with a 123, and although runs of 46 and 39 got Davis back to 3-3, Perry won the decider with a 75.

Six-reds world champion Davis isn’t involved in this week’s China Open having been beaten in last month’s qualifiers by Irish player David Morris.