Jimmy White overcomes injury to progress at Scottish Open snooker qualifiers

The evergreen White defeated Leone Crowley - an opponent 44 years younger than himself - on Monday night at the Mattioli Arena in Leicester to progress in the £554,000 world ranking event.

And White had to do it whilst contending with an ankle injury; the 64-year-old was given permission by tournament officials to forgo the dress code and to wear what looked like slip-on trainers for the match.

The opening frame went the way of White before a break of 69 helped him double his advantage to 2-0. The former UK and Masters champion then made it 3-0 before Irish youngster Crowley - who last year won the World Snooker Federation Junior Championship - claimed back-to-back frames to threaten a big comeback.

However, White resisted his rival's rally, taking a low-scoring sixth frame to score a 4-2 victory and set up a final qualifying round meeting with China's Liu Hongyu on Wednesday night.

The winner of that tie will advance to the main venue, televised stages of the tournament - when the top 32 seeds enter the fray - which are held at the Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh between December 14-20.

Englishman White - who first turned professional in 1980 - has fond memories of playing across the border in Scotland.

His maiden professional title arrived at the invitational Scottish Masters in 1981, and the last of his ten ranking event crowns came at the 2004 Players Championship, with both those competitions held in Glasgow.

After a difficult start to his 47th consecutive season on snooker's top flight, White has now won three of his last four matches on the circuit.

During this ongoing 11-day stint of qualifying at the Mattioli, White defeated Sean O'Sullivan, 4-1, in the Northern Ireland Open before being eliminated by Xu Si, 4-2, in the final round.

But just a couple of days later, White ousted Matthew Stevens, 6-5, to qualify for the 2026 International Championship that will be played in Nanjing, China, at the end of October/start of November.

Elsewhere on Monday at the qualifiers, three-time world women's champion Ng On Yee caused an upset as she whitewashed Hong Kong compatriot Marco Fu, 4-0, with the aid of runs of 66 and 53.

Two-time world women's champion Bai Yulu nearly joined her in the next round but was pipped 4-3 by former Shoot Out runner-up Liam Graham, and 12-times winner of the flagship women's event, Reanne Evans, also narrowly missed out after losing by the same scoreline to Oliver Sykes. Evans had battled back from 3-0 down.

Someone who did succeed from 3-0 behind, though, was Jamie Clarke against Fergal Quinn.

The performance of the day went to Thailand's Thanawat Tirapongpaiboon who compiled breaks of 74, 80, 79 and 121 in a 4-0 win over Paul Norris.

Welsh youngster Liam Davies continued his brilliant recent form with a 4-1 verdict over Julien Leclercq.

The final qualifying round runs across Tuesday and Wednesday.