Snooker: Ronnie O'Sullivan, who plays in Saturday's Regal-T&A Snooker Classic against Willie Thorne at the Richard Dunn Sports Centre, has maintained his second place in the Embassy world rankings.
The Rocket reached the Regal Welsh Open semi-finals last weekend. John Higgins remains in top spot with Stephen Hendry staying third, but the big climber is winner Mark Williams, who rises from seventh to fourth.
Steve Davis is up from 18 to 15, and quarter-finalist James Wattana from Bradford moves up from 25th to 21st. Northern Ireland's Joe Swail rises from 36th to 25th.
Saturday's Snooker Classic starts at 7.30pm
l Birstall's Jason Prince defeated Andrew Higginson (Widnes) 4-1 in the third round of the Rileys UK Tour Event Three at Hazel Grove Snooker Club, Stockport.
Paul Cavney (Rawdon) beat Sean Bowers 4-0 at the same stage and Anthony Massey (Esholt) defeated Martin Lee (Whitefield) 4-1 in the second round, but generally West Yorkshire players had an unhappy time of things.
T&A champion Craig Butler, who plays O'Sullivan over one frame at the Richard Dunn Sports Centre as a curtain-raiser to Saturday night's exhibition, was beaten 4-1 by Andreas Ahmed in the second round.
Jason Barton (Liverpool) repeated his England Under-21 Amateur victory over Wayne Cooper (Bradford), this time winning 4-1 in the second round, and Steve Prest (Leeds) fell 4-3 to Ashley Walker at the same stage. Bradford's Tony Wood also lost a last-frame decider - to Colin Hamer in the first round - and Jon Bagley (Leeds) conceded an opening round walkover to Barry Hughes.
Tickets are still available for Saturday's T&A Regal Snooker Classic at Richard Dunn Sports Centre. To obtain tickets, call in at reception in Hall Ings, Bradford, or call 01274 729511 Ext 200.
Butler qualified from last Sunday's Yorkshire round of the English Open at Bradford's Cuedos Snooker Club. He beat Kevan Robinson (Leeds) 4-2, and made the best break of the day - 116.
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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