NIGEL Bond, world championship beaten finalist eight years ago, made the first century break of the tournament as the £84,500 Travis Perkins UK Snooker Championship got underway in York.

Bond, who had his 38th birthday three days ago, has slipped down the rankings to Number 40 this year, and is among the 16 qualifiers who went into action today at the Barbican Centre.

The Derbyshire man made a break of 103 in the fifth frame of his best of 17 first round match against world number 21, Robert Milkins, from Gloucester, who last year reached the UK quarter finals. It gave Bond a 3-2 lead which he then increased to 4-2.

An early surprise was Hong Kong's Marco Fu, ranked 19 in the world, going 4-0 down to world number 36, Barry Pinches.

Stoke's Dave Harold, the world number 23, took nearly 47 minutes to win the first frame against world number 35 Mark Davis by clearing the colours from green but then made breaks of 63 and 50 on his way to a 3-1 lead.

Tornado Tony Drago, the world number 24 from Malta, hit back from 2-0 down to lead Jamaican Rory McLeod, one of the qualifiers, 3-2.

There was a crowd of about 100 in the Barbican to watch the first eight matches. Eight more started this afternoon.

So far a total of 9,000 tickets have been sold for the event, snooker's second biggest tournament after the world championship.

The final on Sunday, November 30 is a sell-out, the additional 200 balcony tickets which went on sale last week having been snapped up.

There are some tickets remaining for the semi-finals on Friday and Saturday, November 28 and 29.

Table-side tickets for this Saturday afternoon, when the televised stages begin, are sold out but there are a few balcony ones left. There are tickets available for Saturday evening.

The top 16 stars come into play from tomorrow onwards. UK defending champion Mark Williams, whose 12 match winning run was ended last week by fellow Welshman Matthew Stevens in the British Open quarter-finals at Brighton, has his first match in York on Saturday.

Stephen Hendry, the British Open winner, and Ronnie O'Sullivan, runner-up in Brighton, also take to the stage on Saturday.

There has been a big call for tickets on Thursday when crowd favourite Jimmy White plays his opening match against the winner of the first round clash between Drew Henry and Michael Holt.

Updated: 14:47 Tuesday, November 18, 2003