NORTH Yorkshire potter Paul Davison’s dreams of playing in front of a home crowd have again been dashed after he crashed out of the qualifiers for the williamhill.com UK Championship at York next month.

Having seen off Gareth Allen 6-2 in the opening round, the Pickering-based 41-year-old lost 6-4 to Yu De Lu.

So he will not be appearing when the Barbican hosts the game’s second biggest tournament from December 1 to 9.

Six-time champion Steve Davis, meanwhile, pulled off a remarkable recovery in his third round match with Pankav Advani, who had beaten Jimmy White previously.

Davis was in serious trouble at 4-0 down but the 55-year-old, who lost 6-1 to Ronnie O’Sullivan in last year’s event and was beaten by Ding Junhui in the final at York in 2005, surged back to triumph 6-5 in a mammoth six-hour contest.

Davis has only failed to qualify for the latter stages of the UK Championship once in his long career and will play Jamie Burnett for a place at York.

The 16 fourth-round winners from the qualifying event will progress to the televised stages of the tournament at the Barbican.

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