REIGNING world champion Adam Davis crashed out of the Professional 8 ball Masters after losing a 9-7 battle to Ben Flack, with former world champion Gareth Potts also joining him in a first round exit after losing 9-7 to Lee Clough.

Potts, led 7-6 in a best of 17 frame encounter only for Clough to claim the last three frames of their first round encounter, sealing victory with a fluked black, while Davis fell to Bristol's Flack in a late night encounter.

And If you were looking for drama and excitement for your Saturday afternoon sporting fix then Gloucester surely provided more than what any premiership soccer ground could have offered.

But still the same cliche of a game of two halves applied. And no more so than when Adam Finch took on Alfie Burden in the third match of the day at the South West Snooker Academy. Burden, the man who saw his dreams of a professional football career ended by injury got a flyer against Finch as he raced into a 2-0 lead befor Adam pulled one back to trail 1-2. This though seemed to be the catalyst for an Alfie onslaught as he reeled off four successive frames to lead 6-1. Indeed it could have been 7-1 at the interval but for a yellow that stayed on the table. Instead it was left to Adam to clear and reduce his deficit to 2-6. And, as we have seen so many times in snooker and pool the interval can change momentum, and on the resumption it was Finch who took three straight frames to trail only 5-6. Burden though replied to lead 7-5, only to see the advantage cancelled out by Finch who swiftly levelled at 7-7.  With the winner the first to nine frames the match was now effectively a best of three.Taking the initiative Finch put himself one frame from victory at 8-7, only for Burden to send the match into a final frame shootout. The first decider of the tournament.

However, in the decider it was Adam's nerve who held firm as he dominated the frame and cleared up to set up a quarter finals against Clough. 

But there was better news for  Ronan McCarthy, who came through a testing encounter with Partab Singh 9-5 and now meets James Croxton who looked very good in beating Jimmy Carney by the same score.

Elsewhere, Ben Davies who stepped in at short notice to replace Mick Hill made the most of his opportunity by seeing off reigning World Masters Champion Neil Raybone 9-6 and there was also a dominant performance from Phil Harrison who breezed through 9-0 against Morray Dolan. Finally, to conclude the first round action Chris Melling edged through 9-8 against Tom Cousins.

Susan Jardine - Gloucester

Results :

Ronan McCarthy bt Partab Singh  9-5

James Croxton bt Jimmy Carney 9-5

Aiden Finch bt Alfie Burden 9-8

Lee Clough bt Gareth Potts 9-7

Phil Harrison bt Morray Dolan 9-0

Ben Davies bt Neil Raybone 9-6

Chris Melling bt Tom Cousins 9-8

Ben Flack bt Adam Davis 9-7

Quarter final line up:

Ronan McCarthy v James Croxton
Aiden Finch v Lee Clough
Phil Harrison v Ben Davies 
Chris Melling v Ben Flack