Shropshire snooker professional Adrian Gunnell realised one of his ambitions last week when he played in front of his local supporters for the first time in the qualifying stages of this year's World Championships at the Telford International Centre.

Having started the season at number 67 in the world rankings, Adrian came into the competition needing to win five matches to reach final stages at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.

His opponent in the second qualifying round was Northampton's Rory McLeod and Adrian confessed to feeling a little nervous as the first few frames didn't go according to plan.

"I always wanted to play in Telford in front of my home crowd - but after the first frame I was honestly starting to wish that nobody at all was watching" he said.

However, after McLeod took the opening three frames with breaks of 26, 54 and 42 - and then opened up the next with a run of 59, Adrian settled into his usual rhythm and produced a breathtaking clearance of 67 to clinch the vital fourth frame before the mid-session interval.

That break proved to be the turning point and Adrian clearly enjoyed playing in his local surroundings saying "As soon as things started to go okay, and my confidence started to come back, it was the greatest feeling in the world having the Telford people behind me"

From then on he never looked back, reeling off the next seven frames to open up an 8-3 lead before sealing a 10-6 win with a 50 clearance in the last.

However, despite taking the opening frame of his next match against Shaun Murphy, Adrian's run in this year's competition sadly ended as it was Murphy who progressed to the fourth qualifying round after securing the match by 10 frames to 5 with three century breaks along the way.

Nonetheless Adrian has come a long way since first picking up a cue at the Pot Black Club in his home town of Oakengates.

He first hit the headlines in 1988 when, at the age of 15, he compiled the first century break in the Shropshire Star sponsored County Championships with a run of 110.

He then won the tournament three years running from 1990 to 1992 before turning professional in 1994 when there were over 850 professionals - and since then his world ranking has steadily risen to provisionally number 59.

His managers Ian Barton and Trish Taggart have installed a table for Adrian to practice on at the Duke of York pub in Oakengates - and it clearly seems to be paying off as Adrian has over 2000 century breaks to his name as well as 24 maximums.

Last season he defeated former World Championship finalist Peter Ebdon 5-1 before losing to Welshman Matthew Stevens 5-3 in the last 16 of the Thailand Masters and he has also tasted success in Malta where he reached the last 32 before losing to Steven Hendry.

But perhaps his greatest achievement came in the 1998 Thailand Open when he became only the 12th player to make a maximum 147 break in tournament play.

However his feet are still firmly on the ground as he strives to make the breakthrough into the Big Time to regularly play alongside the top names in the sport, and one day appear at the Crucible.

STEVE FLETCHER

Steve.Fletcher@telfordsnooker.com

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