European Masters snooker: Reanne Evans wins marathon match to book last-64 spot in Germany, Jack Lisowski through

12-time women’s world champion Reanne Evans won a marathon match against Jenson Kendrick to book her place in the last 64 of the European Masters.

The Eurosport analyst was pushed the distance in winning the first full-length match of her professional career as she held her nerve superbly in the decider after leading 4-2 only to see her opponent level at 4-4.

The match took over four hours to complete and was forced to resume just before midnight on Thursday evening after being hauled off with Evans leading 4-3 after she won a sixth frame that took one hour and 13 minutes to finish at Leicester’s Morningside Arena.

Her reward is a trip to the German city of Nuremberg to compete at the season’s second ranking event.

Elsewhere in qualifying, world No. 13 Jack LIsowski produced a break of 141 in the third frame of his 5-3 win over Sam Craigie, but Scottish Open champion Gary Wilson lost the final two frames in 5-4 defeat to talented Belgian player Ben Mertens.

Matches involving the top eight seeds – which include world champion Luca Brecel and world No. 1 Ronnie O’Sullivan – have been held over to the finals venue at the KIA Metropol Arena between August 22-27 (LIVE on Eurosport).

The rest of the opening round matches will be staged by the Morningside Arena between Tuesday and Saturday with several heavyweights from the world’s top 16 chasing a spot in the last 64 of the season’s second ranking event.

Kyren Wilson is defending the title he claimed with a 9-3 win over Barry Hawkins last year.

• Reanne Evans 5-4 Jenson Kendrick
• Jack Lisowski 5-3 Sam Craigie
• Ben Mertens 5-4 Gary Wilson
• Sanderson Lam 5-3 Mark Joyce
• Alfie Burden 5-4 Haydon Pinhey
• Allan Taylor 5-2 Tian Pengfei
• Jimmy Robertson 5-1 Himanshu Jain
• Liu Hongyu 5-1 Hammad Miah
• Louis Heathcote 5-2 Andy Lee
• Ross Muir 5-0 He Guoqiang
• Mark Davis 5-1 Ahmed Aly Elsayed
• James Cahill 5-0 Baipat Siripaporn