This is the kind of win that Leo Fernandez will be able to tell his grandchildren about when he finishes up playing snooker.
The 41-year-old Irishman scored one of the greatest ever shocks in UK Championship history hitting back from 5-1 down to send the world number three Ding Junhui tumbling out of the tournament on the opening day in York.
Fernandez – the world number 128 – is the lowest ranked professional competing in this year’s event and after taking the first frame had to sit back and watch the two-time winner hit six breaks over 50 in a barrage of heavy scoring to win five frames on the spin and all but have the match sewn up.
It was from here though that the dramatic comeback started as Fernandez won five frames on the spin himself including a fine break of 80 to force the decider.
This will almost certainly be Leo’s finest ever moment in the sport and is a great high after a couple of years of real lows.
Fernandez, who regained his place on the tour at the start of the 2016/17 season, has had to watch on from the sidelines for 15 months after serving a ban from the sport for corruption after intentionally feathering the cueball on his break in the World Championship qualifiers in 2016 to allow others to profit on a bet.
Since his return to the tour back in September he hasn’t won a single match and won just four frames in four qualifying match defeats. In fact, you have to go back as far as the Welsh Open in February 2016 to find his last win.
This colossal victory at The Barbican against one of the game’s real heavyweights will feel like a light at the end of the tunnel for Fernandez who has endured a torrid spell and paid the ultimate price for a huge act of naivety. He will feel he has waited a long time for a moment to cheer about and can now look forward to a second round tie against Noppon Sangkhaem.
For Ding, this is a poor result and magnifies the extent of his dip in form since winning the World Open in fine style in just two months ago. It has been widely reported that Ding has been suffering with eye problems although a strong start to this match makes it difficult to understand what is quite going wrong for him.
