Shropshire’s Adrian Gunnell overcame illness and an horrendous start to keep alive his World Snooker Championship dreams.Battling against a heavy cold and chest infection, Gunnell’s hopes of qualifying for the final stages of the sport’s biggest competition for the first time appeared to be in tatters as he trailed Welshman Ian Preece 5-0 at Prestatyn yesterday.

Breaks of 80 and 119 provided some encouragement for the Telford cueman, but still left him with a mountain to climb as he trailed 7-2 at the interval.

Gunnell, however, dug deep into his reserves to reel off seven frames on the trot to go within one of victory.

Preece landed the next two to force a decider, but Gunnell held his nerve to clinch an amazing 10-9 success.

“I have to admit at 5-0 I was thinking about chucking the game because I felt that bad that there was no way back,” he said.

“I was missing some balls by a foot because I had double vision and I was coughing violently all the time.

“But I managed to win the first two of the evening and I thought I could put him under some pressure then.

“I played well to win 9-7and I’m delighted with the win. I built the last frame up a lot because there was a lot of money and ranking points riding on it and if I had lost, it was my chances of getting into the top 32 gone.

“I’m proud of myself because it would have been easy to let the game fizzle away and lose 10-3 or something.”

Gunnell will now meet Stuart Bingham in Sheffield in March for a place at the Crucible.

Meanwhile, Jimmy White retained his chances of remaining on the main tour with a 10-7 victory over Andrew Higginson, while former world champion John Parrott swept past Gareth Coppack 10-3.

White, 45, missed out on a place in the TV phase at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre last year but moved a step closer to returning this season after pulling away from 7-7 with Higginson.