BURY cueman, Stephen Kershaw, made a splendid start to his Benson and Hedges Snooker Championship in Malvern on Wednesday evening (Oct 29).

Kershaw, seeded through to round three of the £33,000 competition, won his 'War of the Roses' clash with Bradford's Tony Wood 5-0.

Kershaw outscored his Yorkshire rival 359 to 73 and meets Robin Hull today for a place in the money stages.

The 22-year-old world 241 enjoyed a top break of 63 in the fourth frame and finished off with 49.

The competition provides the winner with a £5,000 first prize plus a passport to the Benson and Hedges Masters at Wembley next February.

And it had proved a stepping stone to greater riches for many of today's top stars. Former champions include world champion, Ken Doherty, Ronnie O'Sullivan and Alan McManus.

Unfortunately for two other Bury professionals their road to Wembley has already ended.

Lee Marney, 25, and 28-year-old John Daniels both came through their opening matches only to lose next time out.

Marney went down 5-1 to Scotland's Colin Donaldson and Daniels lost by the same score to Andrew Radford from Exeter.

Previous news story

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.