Jimmy White. Picture by Monique Limbos

JIMMY White boosted his tour survival hopes by earning a much-needed win against Joe Swail in the China Open qualifiers.

The Whirlwind went into the match earlier today (Tuesday) precariously placed in 64th place on the provisional two-year money the list. The top 64 from the list will remain on the professional tour next season.

A defeat today could have left White below the critical 64th place position and would have definitely needed more wins to climb back to safety.

But today’s 5-2 win has lifted the six-times World Championship finalist up to 58th place and given him some breathing space going into the business end of the campaign.

White is by no means safe yet but the win means he can sleep easier tonight knowing he’s in a safer position with more events coming up to climb the table further.

White was in impressive form as breaks of 99,  135, 64 and 61 helped secure his place in the Beijing ranking event, starting at the end of next month.

Elsewhere, the final day of qualifiers saw comfortable wins for Ding Junhui, Mark Allen and former world champions John Higgins and Graeme Dott.

But German Masters semi-finalist Rod Lawler suffered a surprising 5-3 defeat to Stuart Carrington.

Tuesday’s Results:

Dominic DALE 5-1 Ahmed SAIF
Graeme DOTT 5-0 Alex DAVIES
Matthew SELT 5-0 Jak JONES
Peter EBDON 5-4 Fraser PATRICK
John HIGGINS 5-2 Vinnie CALABRESE
Kyren WILSON 5-4 Marcus CAMPBELL
Jamie O’NEILL 5-1 Alan McMANUS
Martin O’DONNELL 5-1 David GILBERT
Anthony HAMILTON 5-3 Alex BORG
Mark ALLEN 5-2 James CAHILL
Kurt MAFLIN 5-0 Rhys CLARK
Ding JUNHUI 5-0 Thanawat TIRAPONGPAIBOON
Fergal O’BRIEN 5-1 Paul DAVISON
Peter LINES 5-3 Joel WALKER
Jimmy WHITE 5-2 Joe SWAIL
Stuart CARRINGTON 5-3 Rod LAWLER