MENTAL strength was key to helping Ross Muir secure a place in the main draw of the British Open.

The Musselburgh snooker star let slip a 3-1 lead against Stuart Carrington in the qualifiers in Leicester on Thursday night.

However, he held his nerve to clinch the deciding frame and reach the main draw of the tournament.

Speaking the following day, Muir said: “Stuart is a very solid player.

“He does not really give you much and he is very, very tight.

“He takes his chances and does not seem to leak too many.

“It was a very good win and it has been a pretty good start to the season with qualifying for the European Masters and the British Open.

“Performances have not been fantastic but, at the end of the day, sport is a results business and I got the results.

“In the match with Stuart, I played two really poor frames to basically go to 3-3 after being 3-1 up.

“I played two awful frames and I was a bit all at sea.”

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The victory means Muir will face one of the sport’s top stars when the main section of the competition gets under way in Cheltenham on September 25.

It is a competition that the 27-year-old has enjoyed success at in the past.

In 2021, he reached the last 16, picking up three victories before losing out to Ricky Walden.

Then, last year, he made it to the last 32 before going down to Lyu Haotian.

Muir said: “I think, overall, it is probably one of my most successful events.

“I have got to the last 16 or 32 and had a lot of good wins there. Hopefully, I can get past the last 16 and push even further into the tournament.”

Muir spoke to Courier Sport just after he had returned from Leicester and before jetting out to Nuremberg for the European Masters, which got under way on Tuesday.

He faced world number 25 Joe Perry on the opening day of the competition and came through 5-3 before losing out to Shaun Murphy.

 

 

Muir was in confident mood going into the competition and put that down to working alongside former world champions John Higgins and Graeme Dott.

The county potter said: “I think my practice matches that I have been playing with John and Graeme almost every week are making a massive difference to my game.

“Coming up against that level of quality on a weekly basis is something I have never had the privilege of doing before in my career.

“It is really helping and I am going into qualifying matches and noticing a lot of areas of my game that were lacking in previous years and are now a lot stronger.”