Former World Snooker Champion Ken Doherty has started the season with a magnificent win over fellow Irishman Fergal O’Brien.

In an epic match that lasted 4 hours 11 minutes Doherty managed to book himself a trip to the Shanghai Masters with a 5-4 victory.

Doherty whose form has dropped dramatically over the last two seasons will be delighted with the win and of course will be looking to record more wins on the tour this season to halt his slide down the ranking list.

His work, and the work of all players outside the top 16 this year, will be tougher as there are only 6 ranking events on the calendar so room for error is very small.

Other Results from the Qualfying Round (All winners progress to China):

• Mark King 5-4 Stuart Pettman
• Judd Trump 2-5 Marcus Campbell
• Liang Wenbo v David Gilbert (Held to Shanghai)
• Dave Harold 2-5 Andrew Higginson
• Michael Holt 5-4 Jamie Burnett
• Jamie Cope 5-0 Anthony Hamilton
• Fergal O’Brien 4-5 Ken Doherty
• Barry Hawkins 5-1 Simon Bedford

There are a further eight qualification matches that started at 4pm, results later.

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