GRAEME Dott is eager to put last month's "blip" behind him after returning to winning ways at the UK Snooker Championship against Switzerland's Alexander Ursenbacher.

The 2006 world champion from Larkhall crashed out of his last ranking event with a 6-1 loss to Craig Steadman in the first round of China's International Championship.

After following that with defeat to Ken Doherty in Germany last week, Dott arrived at the Barbican in York yesterday determined to end his frustrating spell.

After racing into a 4-0 lead he was pegged back in consecutive frames by Ursenbacher.

But Dott eventually eased to a 6-2 victory over the Swiss teenager.

"My form was pretty good up until the last ranking tournament, where I lost to Craig Steadman," said the 37-year-old Scot. "Before that I was playing pretty well and everything was going OK so that was obviously a blip.

"Here I felt quite comfortable. I managed to win the first four frames but it could have been any score.

"It could have 4-0 to him - he had a chance in every frame - so I was happy to be 4-0 up.

"Alexander started to play quite well after that. It could have gone to 4-3 so I was quite happy to finish the match.

"The top players are on a hiding to nothing really because you're expected to win so I've done all I'm expected to do - I've played well and I've won the match."

The opening afternoon featured an all-Scottish first-round clash as Scott Donaldson, from Perth, lost 6-4 to Dumbarton's Marcus Campbell. And 20-year-old Donaldson admitted: "I didn't deserve to win, it's as simple as that.

"The way Marcus played meant he deserved to win and in my opinion it was the right result.

"But if I'm going to lose to anyone, I would rather it was to someone from Scotland.

"I suppose the fact I made the third round here last year and showed I could win here makes the result even more disappointing.

"All I can say is good luck to Marcus because he's a good guy."

Elsewhere, 21-year-old Michael Leslie, from Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, was beaten 6-0 by an in-form Robert Milkins.

Leslie said: "Last year I was 4-0 down at the interval and ended up winning, so at the interval I was still thinking, 'Can lightning strike twice?'

"But I just couldn't get going and couldn't get settled out there.

"Rob deserved to win. I need to do a lot of hard work and I have a lot of learning to do in order to compete with these guys.

"To play as badly as that is unacceptable. I'll have to go back to the drawing board."

Glasgow's Alan McManus crashed to a 6-1 loss to Joel Walker.

But 19-year-old Ross Muir, from Edinburgh, gave a superb account of himself against the 2002 world champion Peter Ebdon before eventually going down 6-5 in a nailbiting contest.

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