PRESTON'S Stephen Rowlings has graduated to the ranks of the professionals of world snooker after winning through the amateur stages of the World Championship at Hazelgrove Snooker Club in Stockport.
His qualification made up for the disappointment of losing 5-4 in the final match last year to Luke Fisher, who went onto reach snooker's Main Tour and win the World Under-21 Championship.
In the next phase, Rowlings will play one of the eight bottom-ranked pros not on the Challenge or Main Tours in Harrogate in January.
He may have to win as many as 15 more matches to reach the Embassy World Championship final stages at the Crucible in Sheffield in April.
This is a tall order, but two English players did achieve promotion to the Main Tour last year by accumulating enough ranking points in the qualifiers.
Rowlings opened his campaign in fine style, thrashing Lee Payne of Wednesbury 5-0 with breaks of 48, 83, 52, 50 and 64.
In his final match, he defeated Matthew Selt of Romford 5-3.
Twelve countries were represented at the qualifiers including Australia, Vietnam, Denmark, Iceland and Singapore.
But only one place of the eight available went to a player from outside the UK: Tam Mustafa of Cyprus.
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