MARK WILLIAMS (pictured) no doubt woke up this morning with a stinging hangover after declaring yesterday that he was heading back to Cwm for a major session on the ale.

The world number one had just crashed out of the Regal Welsh Snooker Championship at Cardiff International Arena and, despite being in a reasonably upbeat mood following his 5-1 loss to Scotland's Graeme Dott, the world looks heavy on his shoulders.

If that was not bad enough, Carmarthen's Matthew Stevens had just enough time to get home to West Wales, find a pub and drown his own sorrows after he ended Welsh interest in the tournament by crashing out 5-0 to Irishman Fergal O'Brien.

Williams is suffering from a lack of self-belief at the moment and, after saying that he has all but written off the current campaign, he astonishingly added: "Being number one in the rankings doesn't mean anything."

He also amazingly added: "I just want to stay in the top eight. The only thing that matters is being world champion. The rankings are rubbish now."

Williams won his only World Championship crown when beating Matthew Stevens at The Crucible in the first all-Welsh grand finale in May 2000 and took the top spot on the ranking list from Scotland's John Higgins at the same time.

Williams had the bottom half of the Regal Welsh draw to himself before his defeat by world number 14 Dott, having watched Ronnie O'Sullivan fall from grace 5-4 against Yorkshireman Paul Hunter.

But, after starting brightly with a frame-winning break of 79 in the first, Williams lost the rest as Dott grew in confidence.

He added: "All credit to Graeme. He has played good stuff and outplayed me after the first frame. I wish him good luck. If he keeps playing like that, he will be a tough player to beat. I felt good out there but he gave me a whopping.

"I cannot wait to go home and get drunk out of my face. I've played O'Sullivan plenty of times and he has not played as well as he (Dott) did today.

"He put some good balls into the middle bag. Sometimes you see players who do well in one match and then they get beaten in the next, though."

Higgins, who defeated England's Mark King 5-3 to reach the quarter-finals, does not share Williams' pessimism about the ranking list.

He said: "Obviously, you want to be recognised as the best. That's what you would love to do again and again. Being number one in the world is always an ambition but, if you are world champion, then you are recognised as number one anyway." Williams will be heading back to the practice table at the Emporium Snooker Club, Bargoed, trying to put the bogeys behind him and capture the B and H Masters, which starts on Saturday week.