Tony Drago qualifies for quarter-finals

After the World Snooker Championship came to an end last Monday at the Crucible in Sheffield, the same venue on Wednesday began hosting the World Seniors Snooker Championship.

Late Thursday evening, Tony Drago, who is one of the players invited to participate in this fourteenth edition of this Championship, played his first match against the Canadian, Vito Puopolo, where he had a convincing 3-0 win.

This championship is open for players over 40 years of age and a total of 16 players from seven different countries will be taking part. Drago was among seven players who had an invitation from the World Snooker Federation for this prestigious championship.

The other players invited need no introduction to the international snooker scene and they are Mark Davies, Ken Doherty, Stephen Hendry, Joe Johnson, Lee Walker (last year's winner) and Jimmy White. The other nine players qualified from a number of other tournaments held in the United Kingdom together with the winners of the Seniors Championships of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific and that of PanAmerica. The latter was precisely Drago's opponent, the Canadian Puopolo.

The African champion, Mohamed Khairy, had to be replaced at the last minute as he could not travel due to visa restrictions.

Drago took only 37 minutes to close the game which was played on the best of five frames.

He won the first frame 70-5, the second frame 62-23 and closed the game with a break of 73 points for a final score of 111-21. So far this is the highest break of the tournament. During this game Drago was statistically excellent having performed at an average pot time of just 12.96 seconds and a pot rate success of 94.74%.

Now Drago in the Quarter Finals meets the 50-year-old Englishman, Mark Davies, who is still active in his professional career and currently is in 68th place in the world snooker rankings.

In fact he was very close to be amongst the last 32 players to compete in the World Snooker Championship held during the last days.

He lost in dramatic fashion in the fourth and final qualifying round to Joe Perry. He missed a pink ball with which he would have closed the game but gave Perry a chance to force a decisive frame which was only won with the last black ball.

The Quarter Final between Drago and Davies will now be played on Saturday on the best from seven frames and starts at 3.30 pm (local time).