Graeme Dott. Picture by Monique Limbos

FORMER world champion Graeme Dott reached the quarter-finals of the UK Championship in dramatic style after he won a final frame decider to stop Neil Robertson pulling off an incredible fightback.

Dott, who has yet to win the UK Championship, looked set for a surprising easy win when he lead 5-0 until the defending champion showed his class winning the next five frames to make a superb comeback win possible.

But Dott, who played Robertson in the 2010 World Championship final, got his composure back just when it mattered in a topsy turvy final frame with a match-winning 56 break after Robertson missed a tricky brown to the baulk corner pocket.

“Everything was going good to go 5-0 up,” said Dott,

“Neil let me off the hook in a couple of the frames when normally he just clears up. I was surprised to be 5-0 up but then he started playing the way he normally does and didn’t really miss that much.

“We saw it when Nigel Bond came back from 5-0 down against Barry Hawkins and you think ‘please don’t let it happen to me as well.’ If I let him see a red I just felt he was clearing up all the time.

“I just wanted a chance in the last frame and got one. When I missed a red I though he had me beat – but luckily I had another chance.”

Dott’s next opponent will be Stuart Bingham who continued his bid to win the UK Championship for the first time after he cruised through to the last eight with a 6-0 hammering over Ricky Walden in the afternoon session.

The afternoon also saw Anthony McGill win the battle of Scotland after beating his native rival John Higgins to reach the UK Championship quarter-finals.

And, like Dott did in the evening session, McGill was forced to win the hard way after letting slip a commanding 4-1 lead as Higgins rallied late on to force a deciding frame shootout.

McGill could face Ronnie O’Sullivan in the quarter-finals should the four-times UK winner defeat Matthew Selt on Thursday.

And Mark Davis ended the run of one of this week’s star youngsters James Cahill, beating him 6-2.

Cahill produced one of the finest displays of the tournament on Tuesday beating Ding Junhui in a final frame decider. And maybe the late night drama of yesterday had some influence in his last 16 defeat.

Davis led 3-1 at the interval before Cahill won the next to close to one frame behind. But Davis closed out the contest winning the next three frames.