Reigning champion Ken Doherty swept towards the quarter-finals of the Embassy World Snooker Championship at the Crucible last night like a young monarch intent to show the world that the crown bestowed upon him last year was well placed - and secure.
Hopeful of retaining the title Doherty's performance was authoritative and had lustre enough to dominate 24-year-old Stephen Lee, the 16th seed, 10-6 after just two sessions of the 25 frame second round.
Doherty, however, will be disappointed despite the commanding position he holds, slipping three frames in succession to Lee at the close of the evening session.
Following Jimmy White's first round humiliation of a bemused Hendry, the draw has now been flung open with any one of half a dozen players now believing they can win the £220,000 first prize. An in form Hendry is still regarded as better than anyone on the circuit.
Former champion Steve Davis, however, will have a difficult job to be one of the hopefuls. He was left in dire straights, trailing 11-5 to fourth seed Mark Williams of Wales and it could have been much worse.
Davis failed to come back from an overnight deficit of 5-3 and conceded even more ground in the second session, losing at one stage 11-3 before a mini-revival which kept him in the competition. The match concludes today at 10.00 a.m. with Williams needing only two frames for victory.
Doherty set himself up in his current strong position during the morning session, taking a 4-0 lead in under an hour before going into lunch a comfortable 6-2 in front. With a brace of modest breaks of 29 and 50 followed by more impressive totals of 83 and 82, it was the roundness of Doherty's overall game which started the murmers that his shape is coming around to that which brought him such unprecedented achievement last year. His disappointing end to the evening, however, took just a little gloss of the day's fine work.
The Irishman's form has been creeping all year. After a shakey start he won an invitational event in Malta before reaching the semi-finals of the German Open, Wembley Masters, Thailand Masters and Charity Challenge as well as reaching the final of the Irish Masters at Goffs.
Lee, a 1992 English amateur champion, has never progressed beyond the second round in this competition. Doherty needed seven frames out of the eight in last night's session to guarantee at least £33,000 and a quarter-final place. But breaks of 109 in the fifth and 72 in the eighth frames earlier in the day indicated that Lee was indeed dangerous.
Doherty, however, never let him into contention and just as the champion maintained a three game cushion as a buffer in the early session, so he hit out in the first of the evening with a 137 break, a heartening score which left him joint third in the highest breaks table.
After the 10th frame Doherty led 8-2 with an 88 break before Lee finally got the better of a safety dominated game wining 7625.
The 13th frame went Doherty's way with a break of 90, again sending him into a commanding position of 10-3.
Needing only three frames to go through, Lee sensed the danger and hit back. A break of 62 brought him within six frames before wining the 15th frame for a 10-5 score. Doherty then hit a worrying lull and will be displeased with a careless finish allowing Lee to end the session with a three frame run leaving the score at 10-6 for today's final session.
Fergal O'Brien the 50 to 1 outsider from Bayside, Dublin, faces fifth seed Peter Ebdon this evening for a quarter-final place. O'Brien has already made his mark beating 12th seed James Wattana in the first round.
