Dott battles back

World champion Graeme Dott battled back from behind to book a quarter-final berth at the Northern Ireland Trophy today.

Last season’s Crucible champion trailed Leicester’s Mark Selby 3-1 in their last-16 showdown at the Waterfront Hall.

But despite having seen Selby, this summer’s World 8-Ball champion, forge ahead with breaks of 107 and 89, Dott dug deep to keep his silverware charge alive with a nerve-jangling 5-4 victory.

The world number four had runs of 68, 96 and a superb 109 to earn a last-eight meeting with Welshman Dominic Dale, the only other winner from this morning’s session.

“To be honest, I thought there was no way I was going to win it,” admitted the Scot. “I played a stupid shot (missing a blue in the eighth frame) and I deserved to lose the frame.

“The last frame was horrible. The snooker gods are not very forgiving when you make such a mess of things, but thankfully I won that last frame.

“It’s great to be in the quarter-finals. Other than a couple of scrappy frames I’m playing really, really well.

“I don’t think I could have played much better than that. It’s just a shame the TV cameras were not there to watch me.”

Fellow quarter-finalist Dale was a 5-4 victor over Ulsterman Gerard Greene, the last local hope left in this year’s tournament.

Winner of the 1997 Grand Prix, the world number 40 led 2-0 and 4-2 before Greene levelled the match with runs of 90 and 65, having earlier compiled a 57 break.

But Dale, with match breaks of 45, 57 and 66, did enough to set up a mouth-watering clash with the current world champion.

“I knew Gerard would be a tough match, but I was solid and my safety was good,” said Dale, who has also beaten Peter Ebdon, last season’s 888.com World Championship runner-up, and 1998 Grand Prix runner-up Marco Fu in this year’s tournament.

“He (Gerard) beat me 10-9 in the World Championship a few years ago. We go back a long way and the first time I beat him was a couple of years ago.

“But he’s such a natural potter and pots balls from everywhere, which makes life difficult.

“The last frame went brilliant. I potted a long red and made a break of 67 with 67 points left, but he needed five reds and five blacks and couldn’t get them.”