Snooker: Dott finds right spot to achieve perfection
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Your support makes all the difference.GRAEME DOTT joined the exclusive 147 maximum break club here yesterday to help ease him into the last 32 of the British Open. The 21- year-old Glaswegian achieved snooker's perfect break - the fifth this year and seventh of the season - in the eighth frame of his game against David Roe.
Dott's break, which earned pounds 5,000 plus a new car worth pounds 22,000, enabled him to draw level at 4-4 and to his credit he regained his composure to win the decider as well.
A delighted Dott admitted: "It wasn't until I potted the last black that I felt confident of getting the maximum. Every ball from the last red through the colours was difficult. In a way that took the pressure off me because I would have been a lot more nervous had they all been sat on their spots. The brown was really tough and at that point I felt the break was going to come to an end.
"I'm just glad after getting the maximum I was able to go on and win the final frame. After all, it's the results that are the important things."
It was Dott's first maximum in a competitive environment, but he said: "I've made three in pro-ams and about another 10 in practice. In fact, I get slagged off at the club for going for them all the time. I had a feeling it was on today after about 24 or 25 but because there was a red on the side cushion I knew I could struggle later on."
Dott now plays Stephen Hendry, who required only 66 minutes to achieve a 5-0 drubbing of the world No 42, Jon Birch.
Jimmy White pulled back from the brink of disaster against Joe Swail with his immediate and long-term future in jeopardy. White faced the prospect of early elimination when he trailed the Northern Ireland professional 4-3. Defeat would also have made it that much tougher for the 36-year- old Londoner to hold on to his provisional world ranking of 15th place.
However, he conjured up a couple of momentous half-century breaks to complete a vital 5-4 success over Swail.
"It was a tough match and there was a lot of pressure on me because of the ranking situation," said White. "I badly needed the points from this game but there is still an awful long way to go."
Drawn to face the world No 8, Alan McManus, at the Crucible, White now plays the 1991 world champion, John Parrott, today for a place in the last 16.
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