KEN DOHERTY was edged out by Alan McManus on the final pink in a nail-biting final of the Thailand Open in Bangkok yesterday. Doherty led by 54 points in the final frame, but McManus had breaks of 32 and 26 to beat the Irishman 9-8 after six and a half hours of tit-for-tat exchanges in which the scores were level six times.

McManus collected the first prize of £40,000 for his win, along with a high break bonus of £5,000 for his 139 total clearance against Peter Ebdon in the semi-finals. But he said: "I don't feel as if I won because Ken played better than I did. He was sharper and scored heavier throughout.

"I never won any of the easy frames, though I did produce some good clearances when it mattered," added the Scot.

"Alan got the better of the safety exchanges and that's why he beat me," said Doherty. "The first session involved some bad snooker and that's where I probably lost the match.

"I'm gutted to lose like this. It's hard to take and a bitter pill to swallow. It was a bonus to get to the final as I came to Thailand mainly too get some confidence.

"It was a bad loss as I think I played better than Alan did," added Doherty, who collected the runner-up prize of £22,500.

A measure of how well Doherty played was the fact he logged seven half-century breaks to only one by McManus, who won one frame on the blue, three on the pink and one on the black.

"To come halfway round the world to play snooker is difficult enough but to be involved in so many hard matches makes things even tougher," added McManus who was taken to the deciding frame in four of his five matches in Bangkok.

The 25-year-old from Glasgow had a top break of 50 compared to Doherty's 89, 85, 83 and 71.