British Open snooker: Graeme Dott leads 200 club in qualifying as golden quartet find classic form

Graeme Dott, Andy Hicks, Rod Lawler and Anthony Hamilton have a combined age of 200, but showed no signs of weathered form in British Open qualifying in Leicester.

The golden quartet booked their respective places in the finals venue in Cheltenham next month after some impressive scoring form at the Morningside Arena.

2006 world champion Dott resisted two century breaks from Zhang Anda in a 4-3 win that saw him finish with a match-winning 71 break after earlier contributing 83 in the fifth frame.

1995 Crucible semi-finalist Andy Hicks rolled in 73, 69 and 55 in a 4-1 win over Andrew Higginson, while ‘Sheriff of Pottingham’ Anthony Hamilton produced 86 and 50 in a 4-1 success against Aaron Hill, who prevented a whitewash with 74 in the third frame.

Rod Lawler – who turned professional in 1990, the year Stephen Hendry won the first of his seven world titles – opened with 84 against Sam Craigie before responding from trailing 2-1 to win the final three frames in a 4-2 success on Wednesday evening.

Meanwhile, Shoot Out winner Chris Wakelin is also through to the last 64 after he retrieved a 3-0 deficit against Andrew Pagett in a 4-3 triumph.

Qualifying runs until Saturday at the city’s Morningside Arena, before the world’s top 16 play their opening matches at the finals venue in Cheltenham with the event staged between September 25 and October 1.

World No. 1 Ronnie O’Sullivan – the British Open champion in 1994 – was paired with former European Masters winner Jimmy Robertson.

The matches are the best-of-seven frames with the quarter-finals increasing to the best-of-nine, before two best-of-11 frame semi-finals and a best-of-19 frame final.

• Graeme Dott 4-3 Zhang Anda
• Liu Hongyu 4-1 Baipat Siripaporn
• Yuan Sijun 4-1 Dylan Emery
• Tian Pengfei 4-1 Rory McLeod
• Andy Hicks 4-1 Andrew Higginson
• Chris Wakelin 4-3 Andrew Pagett
• Anthony Hamilton 4-1 Aaron Hill
• Rod Lawler 4-2 Sam Craigie