Bond has licence to thrill at speed

Veteran Nigel Bond proved himself a champion sprinter as he triumphed at the Snooker Shoot-Out in Blackpool.

The 45-year-old from Derbyshire, who lost to Stephen Hendry in the 1995 world final, pocketed the 32,000 top prize at the Circus Arena as reward for winning six consecutive single-frame, 10-minute matches.

In an all-English final Bond proved too strong for 34-year-old Robert Milkins, who had stunned favourite Ronnie O'Sullivan in the semi-finals.

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World No 37 Bond knocked out Joe Jogia on Friday, Stephen Lee on Saturday, and yesterday reeled off victories over Rory McLeod, Mark King, Marcus Campbell and Milkins.

With the format encouraging accelerated play around the table, Bond was a surprise finalist but proved himself a master of the format, the last man standing out of an initial field of 64 players.

Leeds's Peter Lines had a good weekend, beating former world champion John Higgins on his way to reaching the last 16.

He started off by edging out Barry Hawkins in their first-round match, before ousting the world No 1 on Saturday evening.

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A break of 42 put Lines 54-17 ahead. Higgins replied with a long red but had just over 30 seconds to close the gap and lost 54-47.

"I was panicking at the end when he was potting balls," said Lines. "When you're ahead you lose your composure and start looking at the clock. There's a danger of being too negative – if you get a chance to pot some balls you should just take it. It's great fun out there, there's a lot of banter from the crowd."

But the 41-year-old, ranked 41 in the world, finally found his luck run ut against Judd Trump, edged out 39-37.

Trump was 37-17 down but made a break of 22 before missing an easy red. Lines still had two chances to pot a difficult long red, but missed both times and walked away with a 2,000 cheque.