Jimmy Robertson was unsuccessful in his quest for a maiden victory at the venue stage of the Betfred World Snooker Championship.

The Bexhill cueman was beaten 10-6 by Marco Fu in his first round clash at The Crucible in Sheffield, which was completed earlier this afternoon (Sunday).

Trailing 5-4 after the first session yesterday morning, world number 42 Robertson made the perfect start to the second session with a splendid break of 106 to level the scores.

Robertson didn’t score a point in the next two frames, however, as 11th-ranked Fu rattled through them with runs of 70 and 88 to move 7-5 ahead. Robertson did at least win the last frame before the interval with breaks of 32 and 44 to make it 7-6.

That was as good as it got for the local man, though, because Fu reeled off the next three to seal victory. The Hong Kong star edged frame 14 with a 32 clearance before breaks of 63 and 73 gave him frames 15 and 16 for the loss of just 18 points.

Despite the defeat, Robertson can reflect on a fine effort just to get to The Crucible. He won three matches in last week’s qualifiers at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield, the last of which was a nailbiting 10-9 victory over Xiao Guodong.

It’s also been a decent season for the 28-year-old, who qualified for the Players Championship Grand Final in Thailand last month after reaching the semi-finals of European Tour event six and Asian Tour event two.

With Robertson out, local hopes in snooker’s blue riband event now rest with Mark Davis. The world number 18 from St Leonards will begin his first round match against Chinese world number three Ding Junhui from 2.30pm tomorrow.