WELSHMAN Matthew Stevens was furious with the Welsh Open organisers after another dismal day for the Principality yesterday.

Despite losing 5-1 to Leicester's Mark Selby, Stevens was more concerned about a World Snooker ruling in which he was forced to wear his dicky bow while ill rather than the ranking trouble he is facing.

Stevens complained: "I went to the doctors a couple of days ago to get a sick note not to wear a bow tie and I was not allowed to take it off for the match.

"It's the first time in my ten-year career I have asked to take off my bow tie and I was more disappointed I wasn't allowed to do that than anything else in the match, to be honest.

"I'm disappointed because certain people are allowed to take their bow ties off - and I wasn't. Mark played well, so I'm not making excuses, but it doesn't help."

It is now a case of 15-1 against Wales at this year's tournament, those sad figures are, respectively, the amount of frames lost by Welshmen in this week's world- ranking tournament.

And now it is up to the last Welshman standing, Cwm-born double world champion Mark Williams, to keep the Dragon flying.

And one man can take a fair share of the blame for the decline in Welsh fortunes - Selby. The world number 28 added the scalp of unwell Stevens yesterday to that of Newport's Ian Preece, who was beaten 5-0 by the Englishman on Monday.

Stevens did manage the solitary frame victory when he was 3-0 down to Selby, hitting an 82 break for the hint of a revival before losing 5-1.

But Pontycymmer's world number 17 Ryan Day lost focus against Dubliner Michael Judge yesterday and was whitewashed 5-0.

So something has to go right for the Welsh this week and boils down to Williams' clash with Scotland's world number 54 Jamie Burnett to restore some of the balance.

Carmarthen's world number 14 Stevens needed to have a convincing week of action in order to arrest a slump down the ranking list which leaves him, provisionally, out of the elite top 16 for the first time since 1999.

As for 26-year-old Day, provisionally ranked in the top 16 for the first time in his career, he looked sullen as he sat in his chair unable to do anything about the sentence Judge was handing out to him.

He said: "The result is a downer. That's the first time I have lost two first round matches in a season and they have both been 5-0.

"Although Michael played well, I had half-chances. When I was 1-0, 2-0 and 3-0 down, I said to myself come on' I didn't feel under pressure. If anything, I expected to get a bit more pressure to focus myself.

"Now it will be all important for the world championships to get results but I could have done myself a favour this week and taken a bit of pressure off but that's by the by now. It's a case of knuckling down and getting ready to qualify for Sheffield."

And Derbyshire's Nigel Bond scuppered the defence of reigning Welsh Open champion Stephen Lee at the first hurdle, taking three consecutive frames in a row after the mid-session interval to win 5-2.