Gibraltar Open 2021 - Jimmy White digs deep to beat below-par Stuart Bingham to reach round three

ByAlex Livie

Updated 05/03/2021 at 20:10 GMT

Jimmy White was not at his best but he was able to overcome a below-par Stuart Bingham to reach the third round at the Marshall Arena. The Whirlwind advanced to the second round after winning the final four frames to beat Joe O'Connor 4-3, while former Gibraltar Open champion Bingham eased to a 4-0 win over Gerard Greene.

Jimmy White drew on all his experience to claim a 4-2 win over Stuart Bingham in the second round of the Gibraltar Open.

White came into the contest with a deal of confidence after winning the final four frames of his match over Joe O’Connor in the first round.

His form, and that of Bingham, was not great on Friday, but he shrugged off the errors to edge over the line for his first win over his opponent in 19 years.

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Bingham appeared to be cueing extremely well as he compiled a break of 43 in the opener, but miscued a pink to an extent that he left a scuff mark on the white that required attention before the match could continue.

The miscue proved costly, albeit it took White a couple of visits to get over the line - with his pots on yellow, green and brown on the colours all excellent.

Bingham needed a response to settle the nerves after a string of misses and the miscue, and he did that with a couple of solid contributions to take the second.

White hit back to take the third to raise hopes of securing his first win over Bingham since the Thailand Masters of 2002, but it was heart-racing stuff before he edged ahead for a second time.

The six-time World Championship finalist made an excellent break of 46 to move 55 points to the good and later in the frame knocked in a tough yellow to leave Bingham requiring a snooker.

‘That is absolutely brilliant!’ – White shows his class against Bingham

Bingham got the snooker on the brown and looked set to clear up, but in potting the blue he snookered himself on the pink. The 2015 world champion got out of the snooker, but left the pink on and White knocked it into the left middle.

Securing a seeding at the World Championship is a big aim for the remainder of the season for Bingham. He knew the importance of a good run this week and drew level with a good contribution in the fourth but lost an attritional fifth.

Both players gifted chances to each other, and the balls finally fell in White's favour when Bingham missed a narrow cut of a red into the yellow pocket and the 58-year-old stepped in to move within one frame of victory.

All players ask for is a chance with the winning line in sight. Bingham gifted that to White when he missed a red into the bottom-left pocket with the balls spread.

If White had nerves, he did not show them as he produced his most fluent play of the match to secure victory with a break of 74.

For Bingham, he may now have to steel himself for World Championship qualification.

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