Teen Brecel to beat Hendry’s Crucible record

Brecel, who is 17 years and 36 days old, beat Essex’s Mark King 10-8 in the final round of qualifying at Sheffield’s English Institute of Sport, his fourth win of the week.

And he will feature in today’s first-round draw for the event which begins at the Crucible on Saturday.

He is the fifth 17-year-old in history to reach the Crucible, after Hendry, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Judd Trump and Liu Chuang.

He said: “I feel absolutely fantastic. I didn’t expect this to happen this week.

“I believe I can be a future world champion.”

Hendry, who was also 17 but almost two months older when he first qualified in 1986, also went through yesterday, triumphing 10-6 against China’s Yu Delu.

Seven-time champion Hendry, now 43, succeeded where six-time champion Steve Davis and six-time runner-up Jimmy White both failed last week by coming through the qualifying tournament.

The Scot, who last had to qualify in 1988 and has been ever-present at the Crucible since 1986, has fallen to 23rd in the world rankings and was close to retiring last year. “I’m very pleased to be through,” Hendry said.

He leaves for a business trip to China today, returning on Friday, a day before the World Championship begins.

He is hoping to be among the late starters, affording him the weekend to shake off any jet lag, but that is up to the luck of the draw.

Yesterday he had breaks of 73, 69, 76 and 88. On Saturday he fired in breaks of 129 and 107. “I played quite nicely,” Hendry said.

The 2002 world champion Peter Ebdon, who won the China Open title at the start of the month, crushed Alfie Burden 10-0 to secure his place in the draw today.

But there was no storybook ending for Peter Lines, after he failed at the final qualifying hurdle losing 10-4 to Andrew Higginson.

The 42-year-old from Leeds had only qualified for the televised stages of the World Championship once in a long career on the circuit.

That was back in 1998 when he lost to former world champion John Parrott on debut.

But he struggled against the World No 19, who will be joined in today’s draw by Barry Hawkins, who beat David Morris 10-4, and Dominic Dale who edged out Ben Woollaston 10-3.