Snooker star Davis heading Down Under

The St Leonards talent will face Judd Trump in round one of the inaugural Australian Goldfields Open, which will take place in Bengido, Victoria, from July 18-24.

World Championship runner-up Trump beat Davis en route to winning the China Open at the back end of last season and has won all four meetings between the pair so far, although Davis has run him close in most of them.

Davis, the world no.19, booked his place in Australia courtesy of a hard-fought 5-4 victory over Tian Pengfei in the final round of the qualifiers at the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield.

Pengfei won the opener last Thursday 116-0 thanks to a run of 85, but Davis strung together a trio of half-century breaks to open up a 3-1 advantage at the mid-session interval.

But Pengfei, a 23-year-old from China, replied with three consecutive frames of his own to edge 4-3 ahead. Davis levelled at 4-4, however, by winning the eighth 136-0 with all his points coming in a magnificent single visit and was always in command of the decider, eventually claiming it 69-14.

Bexhill-based world no.53 Jimmy Robertson beat Andrew Pagett 5-2 in the second qualifying round before going down 5-3 at the hands of Mark Joyce, who knocked out World Champion John Higgins en route to winning the recent Pink Ribbon Pro-Am.

The full articles will appear in Friday’s Observers.