Break fills McLellan's empty pockets

David McLellan recorded the sport's latest maximum break to earn himself £5,000 at the Benson & Hedges Championship in Malvern and said: "It couldn't have been better timed. Apart from coming in the final frame of the game, the money will get me out of a real hole.

David McLellan recorded the sport's latest maximum break to earn himself £5,000 at the Benson & Hedges Championship in Malvern and said: "It couldn't have been better timed. Apart from coming in the final frame of the game, the money will get me out of a real hole.

"I needed a few quid because my results haven't been so good lately," added McLellan, the world No 98, who took less than 10 minutes to pot 15 reds, 15 blacks and all the colours for his 147 clearance on Tuesday night.

The 30-year-old Glaswegian potted his way to the 40th perfect clearance in just 18 years during a 5-3 victory over Blackpool's Steve Meakin at the Willie Thorne Snooker Club.

"The winner of the tournament only gets £5,000 so to get that much money for one frame is fantastic. To be honest, I didn't really know how much I'd won because I still can't believe I've made a maximum at last.

"I've only ever had one before and that was in practice. I'm not one of these players who seems to get chances for a maximum during games. But tonight, after I'd taken six reds and six blacks, I knew I had an opportunity. I was a bit worried after I had a massive kick on the seventh black but after that there were only a couple of tricky shots. However, the pressure was really on towards the end and I was shaking like a leaf on the final pink and black."

McLellan became only the third player in the 11-year history of the Benson & Hedges Championship to make a 147. A year ago the Londoner Karl Burrows knocked in a maximum against Adrian Rosa while the Ulsterman Terry Murphy repeated the feat in the 1993 event in Edinburgh.

While McLellan was clearing the table, London's Shazi Khan was setting a record of a different kind as he crashed to a 5-0 defeat against County Meath's Colm Gilcreest. Khan managed to score just 21 points in the entire match against his opponent's reply of 473. It was one of the lowest totals recorded in a professional best-of-nine match, though a tally somewhat better than the two reds potted by Northern Ireland's Maureen McCarthy at the 1998 Benson & Hedges Championship.