Steve Davis advises Stephen Hendry to keep plugging away

13 April 2012

Steve Davis has urged Stephen Hendry to "give it everything" in his quest to remain among snooker's elite.

Hendry won an absorbing battle between the veteran pair last night in Telford to secure his place in the second round at the Pukka Pies UK Championship.

After the 9-6 win, Hendry admitted he was finding snooker "torture" and "very frustrating".

The 40-year-old Scot made three centuries in the match but also, like 52-year-old Davis, produced a lot of mediocre snooker.

However Davis believes Hendry does not necessarily need to rethink his ambitions in the game, and he believes the man who won the first of his UK titles 20 years ago can be a contender for the top prizes for several years still.

Davis said: "I realised I was bashing my head against a wall so I stopped practising as much, but that's only been in the last three or four years.

"Stephen's got to give it everything, at least until he's a bit older. He's doing a great job of staying in the top 16. It's a different game to what it was in the 1980s, it's so much harder now."

Hendry made breaks of 115, 130 and a match-clinching 112 but his next highest break was 52, and he was far from happy with his performance.

He faces Mark Selby in a second-round clash which begins this afternoon, and Hendry said: "Snooker is torture at the moment. It's very frustrating.

"In the last frame I potted a long red and made a good break - that's what you're supposed to do, do it in one visit."

Davis stayed with Hendry until 6-6, and said of the Scot: "He played some good frames and some ropey ones, it was a strange match."

Selby fought back from 8-4 behind to beat Jamie Cope 9-8, on the back of breaks of 67, 101, 57, 115 and a closing 73.

Hendry's fellow Scot John Higgins - the reigning world champion - came through a tricky test against Englishman Ricky Walden, winning 9-7.

And Higgins will have a mouthwatering second-round clash with Australian Neil Robertson, who converted a 5-3 overnight lead into a 9-3 victory against England's Tom Ford.

Grand Prix champion Robertson was clinical today and made breaks of 48, 64, 53 and 87 before finishing with a break of 119.

Peter Ebdon reeled off five frames in a row to sink Judd Trump 9-4, and will face Ronnie O'Sullivan or Matthew Stevens, while Welshman Ryan Day went out after a heavy 9-3 defeat to China's Liang Wenbo.

Day almost had the consolation of a maximum 147 break but missed a difficult brown. Liang will face Mark King next.

Stuart Bingham will face Stephen Maguire in round two after upsetting Joe Perry 9-4.

O'Sullivan and Stevens get under way at 1.30pm today, ahead of the opening second-round clashes.

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