The Michael Wasley win was a terrific story for just about everyone except Ding Junhui…and Jimmy White.
The Whirlwind’s place on tour looked all but safe just a fortnight ago before the qualifiers for the Dafabet World Championship. It required some extraordinary performances and an unlikely combination of results to deny him a place by right, even though there is controversial talk of a wild-card should he need one.
But Wasley and Kyren Wilson each won four times to reach the latter stages, and if either one of them were to reach the quarter-finals White would be the man to suffer.
Wilson, of course, trailed Ricky Walden 6-3 after Monday’s play but fellow debutant Wasley now faces a best-of-25 frame match against either Mark Davis or Dominic Dale to end White’s 34-year run on tour.