World Championship: ‘It is dog eat dog’ for Louis Heathcote and Oliver Lines in qualifiers

Heathcote beat Oliver Sykes in the first round of qualifiers at the English Institute of Sport, to set-up a second-round clash against Leeds potter Lines.

Lines, 28, is battling to retain his place in the world’s top 64 rankings.

Heathcote said: “It’s not very nice, but it is dog eat dog in this game. We will both be wanting to win and after that we will shake hands and be friends again.”

Lines is one of several players from the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds, who are competing in the Sheffield qualifiers. Players must navigate up to four qualifying rounds to earn a prized spot at the Crucible.

Another Leeds potter, David Grace, returns on Thursday to complete his second-round match against Rory Thor. The duo were locked at 3-3 after Wednesday afternoon’s session.

Yorkshire are well represented in the qualifiers, and it was a good morning for the four White Rose players in action on Wednesday.

York teenager Liam Pullen took an 8-1 lead over Ukraine’s Anton Kazakov, their best-of-19 clash completing last night after The Yorkshire Post went to print.

The 18-year-old won the opening eight frames, with breaks of 96, 73, 88 and 93, before Kazakov pinched the final frame of the session.

It was a tighter affair for Halifax’s 17-year-old Stan Moody, who took a 4-3 advantage against Mohamed Shehab into the evening session.

Moody is only starting out on his snooker career, but Peter Lines – the 54-year-old from Leeds, and father of Oliver – is at the other end of the spectrum.

But the former World Seniors champion showed his class as he took a 7-2 lead over Egypt’s Mohamed Ibrahim. The standout moment came when Lines knocked in a break of 135, either side of breaks of 61 and 62.

And it was the same 7-2 morning scoreline for Rotherham’s Ashley Carty, against Scotland’s Liam Graham. Carty knocked in breaks of 62, 61 and 66, needing just three more frames when the match resumed on Wednesday evening.

World junior champion Bulcsu Revesz reeled off five successive frames to beat Sean O’Sullivan. The 17-year-old from Hungary had looked in trouble when he initially trailed 6-1. Oliver Brown beat former women’s world champion Reanne Evans 10-0.