JOHN PARROTT drove to Sheffield on Friday safe in the knowledge that, win or lose, he would remain at the Crucible for all 17 days of the Embassy World Championship. Indeed, his role as a BBC presenter has become such a prominent feature of his life that the 1991 champion almost forgot that he was playing at all.

“I turned up here with 17 shirts, all for my television work. Ten minutes before the match, I had to go to Marks & Spencer and buy a white shirt,” Parrott, who was beaten 10-5 by Quinten Hann yesterday as his twentieth successive appearance in the televised phase ended in disappointment, said.

After recovering from 5-1 adrift to trail Hann, the Australian No 1, 5-4 at the end of Saturday’s opening session, Parrott was well placed on the resumption but missed a red in the twelfth frame with a chance to make it 6-6. “The red killed me. I didn’t feel right after making such an unforced error,” he said, before confirming that he will be carrying on next season, despite dropping from a career highest second in the rankings to No 30.

Through winning, Hann, the No 14 seed, is virtually certain to remain in the elite top 16 next season. “If I had lost and dropped out of the top 16 then I would have gone back to Australia, kept messing about and just nicked a bit of money, like I have been doing for the past few years. Now that I’ve stayed in I’m going to move to London and take it seriously,” he said.

Hann, who produced breaks of 85, 55 and 94, has a prodigious natural ability, but it has been largely wasted because of his tendency to give way to frustration rather than to knuckle down and scrap it out. He does not play again until Sunday, when Mark Williams or Stuart Pettman will provide the opposition in the second round.

“I’m going to go back to London to get steaming drunk,” Hann said when asked of his immediate plans, suggesting that his newfound dedicated regime has not yet been fully embraced.

Stephen Hendry, the seven-time champion, has made innumerable sacrifices in the pursuit of excellence over the years, but even during his eighteenth Crucible appearance admitted to an attack of nerves as he made heavy weather of a 10-7 victory against Gary Wilkinson.

Hendry led 9-5 but made a number of unforced errors in trying to close out the match. “I just had to scrape over the line. It was a case of first-round jitters,” he said.

Hendry’s second-round opponent will be Drew Henry, responsible for the elimination of Mark King, the world No 11, who suffered an atrocious run of the ball in losing 10-5 and announced afterwards that he was seriously considering quitting snooker. “After 19 years of this, I’ve just had enough of the game. I’ve got a wife and two lovely kids, but I’m always going home stressed out,” King said, although he is expected to change his mind during the long summer break.

Ken Doherty, the 1997 champion, claimed a 5-4 first- session lead over Shaun Murphy, a qualifier. Graeme Dott, the No 12 seed, built a 5-4 advantage against Robert Milkins.