Hossein Vafaei came from 3-1 down to beat Scott Donaldson 6-4 in the final qualifying round of the MrQ UK Championship, and expects a sizzling atmosphere when he meets Shaun Murphy in York.
Iran’s top player, who has reached the last 16 of this event in each of the last two years, will take on former World Champion Murphy at 7pm on Sunday. He said: “I love playing in the big events with a good atmosphere, as loud as possible. My advice to all the fans is to make it loud! Otherwise it’s tough for us to perform. Hopefully it will be a good match with Shaun, it will be an honour for me to share the table with him.”
From 3-1 down, Vafaei won five of the next six frames with top breaks of 120, 85, 65 and 108. Currently ranked 18th, Vafaei could climb into the top 16 in time for the Masters with a deep run in York. He added: “Scott played very well to go 3-1 up. The game was a bit slow so I changed something and got my game back and started scoring. I got the momentum and made it tough for him. At 3-3 he looked like making a very good clearance but then he missed the black and I potted it to go 4-3 ahead. It was great to finish the match with a century.”
Pang Junxu top scored with 78 in a 6-2 win over Craig Steadman to earn a meeting with Judd Trump. Pang will be one of six Chinese players in the line up in York, alongside Zhang Anda, Ding Junhui, Yuan Sijun, Fan Zhengyi and Zhou Yuelong.
Zhou edged out Ian Burns 6-5 in a match which came down to the last few balls, resolved when Zhou converted an excellent pot on the penultimate red and cleared the table.
Elliot Slessor top scored with 118 as he battled to a 6-3 success against fellow North East cueman David Lilley.
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