Local boy Ian McCulloch followed up his victory over 'people's champion' Jimmy White by ending the Totesport Grand Prix title hopes of Stephen Hendry in Preston tonight.
And Hendry fears after his 5-3 defeat against the Lancastrian left hander that his career could be in serious decline.
McCulloch clinched his place in the quarter-finals with a brilliant 72 clearance after his Scottish rival missed an easy chance to force a decider.
"I've played rubbish the whole tournament and I've just been delaying the inevitable," said the seven-times world champion. "It's no where good enough and I'm wondering whether you've seen the best of Stephen Hendry. I'm not the player I was."
Hendry's shock admission comes just a few days after another fallen star, Mark Williams, suggested he may never recapture the form which made him world champion and world number one.
Hendry, whose wife Mandy recently gave birth to their second child, said: "What's the point in saying you're playing well in practice when you can't deliver in a tournament?"
Hendry, thrashed 17-4 by Ronnie O'Sullivan at last season's World Championship, missed a red into a middle pocket on 67 to give McCulloch his chance. And despite the pressure the world number 17 cleared magnificently.
McCulloch now meets Hendry's 23-year-old practice partner Stephen Maguire for a place in the semi-finals.