MICHAEL WHITE survived a major scare to keep his Crucible hopes on track in the Betfred World Championship qualifiers on Wednesday.
White, who won his maiden ranking title, the Indian Open, last month, held off a spirited Steven Hallworth to come through a 10-8 winner.
The Welshman, who also won the Shootout during a magical March, now needs to win two more matches to secure a place at the Crucible, where he reached the quarter-finals in 2013.
White, 23, was deep in trouble when he entered the first interval of the match trailing 4-0 but recovered, winning the sixth frame on the black and making breaks of 68 and 92 in carving out a 5-4 first session lead.
His run of 116 in the second frame of the night made it seven frames in succession as he looked to have taken full control but Hallworth, a 19 year-old first season professional, refused to lie down.
From 0-43 in the 12th frame he cleared with 78 and then pulled back to 7-7. He also levelled at 8-8 but White held on, winning the next two frames to advance.
Martin Gould: beaten in first qualifying round
The first upset of the eight-day qualifying event saw world no.24 Martin Gould, a semi-finalist in the recent World Grand Prix, beaten 10-6 by Adam Duffy.
Duffy hit the ground running by winning the first three frames and a break of 120 in the sixth helped him take a 6-3 first session advantage.
Gould reduced this to 7-5 but could not complete a full scale recovery as Duffy went through to the second round.
Photographs by Monique Limbos.