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Jimmy White got his UK Championship qualifying campaign underway on Sunday with a 6-2 win over Paul Deaville, a player who is 42 years his junior.
The 62-year-old beat the youngster with a couple of half-centuries along the way, including a 78 in the final frame of the match.
The world number 90 has to win four matches in qualifying to reach the main stages at York’s Barbican and he returns for his second outing against Ross Muir on Monday.
The legendary Whirlwind is still playing in the UK Championship 43 years after he reached the semi-finals on debut in 1981.
He beat the likes of John Virgo, Dennis Taylor and Ray Reardon that year before running into Steve Davis in the semis and taking a 9-0 walloping.
It is also 32 years since White won the UK Championship, beating John Parrott in the 1992 final in one of the biggest wins of his epic career.
Deaville, his opponent on Sunday at the qualifiers in Leicester, was born in 2004, 24 years after White turned professional.
It is not a victory out of the blue for the veteran after he beat Mohammed Shehab and Andrew Higginson at the Saudi Arabia Masters earlier this season, while he beat Deaville, Jackson Page and Hossein Vafaei in the Northern Ireland Open.
The qualifiers run until Thursday 21 November in Leicester, with the main event getting underway two days later on Saturday in York.
Ronnie O’Sullivan is the defending champion after beating Ding Junhui in last year’s final and he will begin the defence of his title on the opening day at the Barbican.
Who he faces is yet to be decided, with plenty of big names having to come through qualifying to join the Rocket and the rest of the top 16 in York.
The likes of Neil Robertson, Barry Hawkins, Jak Jones, Dave Gilbert, Stephen Maguire, Anthony McGill, Tom Ford, Jacki Lisowski and Hossein Vafaei are all in the qualifiers and will be very tricky tests for any top 16 player if they come through.
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