I will recover from Crucible hurt: Brown

JORDAN Brown has vowed to gatecrash the World’s elite top16 next season — despite suffering the heartbreak of missing out on a second successive trip to the World Championship at Sheffield’s legendary Crucible Theatre.

‘The Antrim Ferrari’ dramatically crashed out in a deciding frame after leading throughout against England’s Steven Hallworth in the penultimate qualifying round at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield ahead of the £2.4m Crucible showpiece — a surprise result given the 33-year-old’s stunning victory over six-time and current world champion Ronnie O’sullivan in the Welsh Open final at Celtic Manor in February.

Brown raced into a 3-0 lead with the help of breaks of 52 and 59, however the 25-year-old from Lincoln hit back with a 91 break before also adding the fifth frame to make it 3-2, but Brown kept his cool to go 4-2 up in the first-to-six encounter.

Breaks of 81 and 57 saw Hallworth level at 4-4 but Brown stepped it up with a 64 to go 5-4 ahead once more. That, though, was as good as it got for him, with Hallworth clinching the 10th to take it to a final frame in which he then produced a superb 103 break to progress on a 6-5 scoreline.

Brown — who made it to the behind-closed-doors Crucible last season — will now take a break before making a big bid for the top 16 next season.

“I was disappointed not to get to play in front of the fans at the Crucible last season but now it’s all about using my Welsh Open win to push on,” said Brown.

World Championship qualifying concludes tomorrow with the main action getting under way at the Crucible on Saturday, when fellow Antrim ace Mark Allen will lead the Northern Ireland charge for a first World title since Dennis Taylor’s famous black ball victory over Steve Davis in 1985.