Drago blows it against Stevens

Tony Drago blew a 4-1 lead

Matthew Stevens produced a great escape from within a ball of defeat to edge past Tony Drago 5-4 in the second round of the £440,000 Grand Prix at the Telford International Centre.

Stevens, runner-up to Mark Williams at this year's Embassy World Championship, looked set to become the sixth top-16 player to exit the event when Drago established a 3-0 and then a 4-1 advantage.

The swift-potting Maltese then moved to the verge of a surprise win and a place in the last 16 when he outrageously fluked the brown in frame six.

But Drago, needing only one more pot to cross the line, lashed at a difficult long blue.

He missed by the proverbial country mile and Stevens' comeback got under way when he cleared up to snatch the frame on the black.

To be honest when Tony went 4-1 up I was thinking about what I was going to do at home tonight

  Matthew Stevens

Clinical finishing

After that Drago found applying the finishing touch an impossible task and Stevens, who knocked in a 98 break - easily the highest of the contest - pulled level at 4-4.

The decider began disastrously for Drago when he conceded 27 penalty points while failing to escape from an early snooker on six consecutive occasions, and the axe quickly fell.

The final error from a collapsing Drago was a jawed red. Stevens stepped in with a run of 35 and, trailing 70-0, Drago shook hands in concession with his opponent still at the table.

Going home

"To be honest when Tony went 4-1 up I was thinking about what I was going to do at home tonight," admitted 25-year-old Stevens, from Carmarthen.

Stevens, who defends his Regal Scottish Masters title next week, added:

It was a strange sort of game. Tony took a real swipe at the blue but he still had plenty of chances to kill me off after that

  Matthew Stevens

"It was a strange sort of game. Tony took a real swipe at the blue but he still had plenty of chances to kill me off after that.

"I am really disappointed with the way I played out there. Maybe a little bit of confidence was lacking. I missed a lot but at least I'm still here.

"Mind you, if I carry on like that I won't be for long."

Bye way

Stevens now meets Scotland's Graeme Dott and the winner of that could well receive an unprecedented bye into the semi-finals if Grand Prix title holder John Higgins gets the better of Terry Murphy in the last 16.

Higgins will pull out - win or lose against Murphy tomorrow - in order to honour a long-standing commitment to be best man at his elder brother Jason's wedding in Motherwell on Friday afternoon.

"I'm not even thinking about that scenario," said Stevens.

"I've got to play Graeme first and John's not guaranteed to beat Terry, he's a very good player. I should know - he beat me 5-0 once."