Shaun Storry, Ronan McCarthy and Marc Fleming all booked quarter-final spots in the 2022 Ultimate Pool Pro Cup during the opening televised day of the event.

Following the qualifying rounds held earlier this month, today marked the start of the four-day live television stages featuring the 32 remaining professionals aiming to win a top prize of £10,000.

Former Pro Series event winner Storry – one of the circuit’s most consistent cueists – was the first to make it through to the last eight after winning Group A.

Storry produced two brilliant performances back-to-back in defeating John Roe 7-3 and then Callum Singleton 7-4 in the group final. Earlier on, Singleton helped open the action with a 7-2 win against Craig Lakin.

Group B began with an upset as the experienced Brian Halcrow eliminated four-time Pro Series title winner Shane Thompson, 5-3.

McCarthy has enjoyed a very memorable 2022 having won several major events including the WEPF World Championship. And the Kircubbin legend is still not done with the year just yet, as he defeated fellow Northern Irish teammate Dylan Leary 7-3 before stopping Halcrow 7-2 in the group final to advance.

There was plenty of entertainment, high-quality play and talking points during the evening session at the Players Pool & Snooker Lounge in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

Rookie professional Fleming came from two frames down to dispatch four-time world champion and one of the favourites for this title – Gareth Potts – in a dramatic tie that swung with momentum.

A pivotal moment came in frame six when Potts went in-off when almost certainly about to move 4-2 ahead. Fleming constructed a brilliant finish in the seventh frame and when his opponent found a Golden Duck in the next, he was two up with not much time left on the match-clock remaining.

Potts closed the gap to one and set up a grandstand finish with seconds remaining but was unable to make a very difficult combination shot on the 8-ball to surely send the match to a 6-red shootout.

Scotsman Fleming had a bit of downtime to recover as Rob Wharne played well in a 7-4 success over youngster Luke Gilbert to meet him in the final; Gilbert had recovered from 5-1 behind.

Fleming and Wharne then put on a true Ultimate Pool classic that went the distance. Out of the 13 frames played, there were five break clearances and six reverse clearances.

At 5-3 up, Fleming made a couple of errors in the next two frames which Wharne capitalised on to level before hitting a BC to move one away from victory at 6-5 up. However, off the back of his massive break, Fleming crafted a BC under pressure to take it to a decider, and when Wharne went in-off from his break shot in frame 13, Fleming kept his cool with a RC for a remarkable win.