TWO of Gwent's professional snooker players went out of the Royal London Watches Grand Prix over the weekend at the qualification stage, writes Gary Baker.
Newport's Ian Preece managed to win three matches out of the seven he played to finish fourth in his group, while Lee Walker, from Newbridge, was one place below in fifth also having won three matches.
The tournament is based on a round-robin, quick-fire, best-of-seven frame format Preece's campaign got off to the worst possible start as he went down 4-1 to Cardiff's Paul Davies, who won five of his matches to top the group and go through to the Aberdeen final stages which will also feature Cwm-born Mark Williams.
However, Preece, on his second year back on the main professional tour, managed to take the significant scalp of former top 16 player, Scotland's Alan McManus with a 4-1 scoreline and also beat Walker 4-0 in both players' final match.
Walker beat China's Liu Chuang, another from the Far East, Tian Pengfei, and Telford's Adrian Gunnell over the course of the weekend.
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