Graeme Dott crashed out of the first round at the Crucible as he suffered a 16th consecutive defeat with a 10-7 loss to Joe Perry.
Troubled former champ's losing streak continues at the Crucible.
Former Crucible champion Graeme Dott crashed out of the first round of this year's competition as he suffered a 16th consecutive defeat with a 10-7 loss to Joe Perry.
The Scottish cueman has not won a game since last August and has suffered big personal problems with a cancer scare for his wife and the death of his father-in-law and manager.
After being diagnosed with depression Dott wanted to withdraw from the tournament, but played on only to suffer yet another loss.
Resuming 5-4 ahead, Cambridge man Perry opened up with a century break but Dott responded with two frames including a break of 126.
Perry was scoring heavily though and runs of 132, 63 and 88 took him to the brink of the second round at 9-6, although he fluffed his lines when given the chance to complete the win.
Dott won the frame but Perry did finish the job in the next to go through 10-7 and earn a second round tie with Stuart Bingham.
Withdrawn
"I had withdrawn from the tournament a few weeks ago," Dott revealed.
"The press release had been written and I told my manager to release it but he wanted to wait a week.
"He then introduced me to psychologist Bob Burns. He said he didn't want me to come and I wasn't in the frame of mind to play until I picked up my cue last week.
"I am surprised at how I played, I felt great, really back to normal. Joe just beat me.
"I thought he played unbelievably well. He made four centuries and could easily have had six. I can't speak highly enough about the way he played."
Perry admitted that nerve were getting the better of him as the finish line was approaching, but was glad to finally get the job done.
"I played really good stuff to get 9-6 ahead but after that the tension was getting bigger and bigger by the minute," said Perry.
"You try to stay positive but it's only human nature to have that little bit of doubt so I'm relieved to get over the line."
Ken Doherty, the 1997 world champion, looks set for an early exit after falling 7-2 behind after the opening session of his first-round match with Liang Wenbo.
Wenbo impressed with runs of 77, 58, 68 and 95 to leave himself just three frames short of victory.
Murphy wins
In the afternoon session, Shaun Murphy required just four frames to turn his overnight 7-2 advantage into victory over Dave Harold.
Harold reduced his deficit to 7-3 before Murphy - the 2005 world champion - reeled off breaks of 107, 72 and 73 to seal the win and a second-round date with Ali Carter.
Crowd favourite Ronnie O'Sullivan began his quest for a third world title by edging 5-4 ahead against 17-year-old Chinese cueman Liu Chuang.
O'Sullivan made breaks of 76 and 87 on his way to a 3-0 lead. But Chuang got on the board with a run of 92 and also took the next two to pull level.
A break of 57 put O'Sullivan back in front before the final two frames - both tactical affairs - were shared to leave the Englishman 5-4 in front.
