Michael White launches his quest for a fourth Crucible appearance when he faces Aditya Mehta in the opening qualifying round for the 2017 World Championship at Ponds Forge in Sheffield on Thursday.

The Welshman, who reached the quarter-finals on his debut in the final stages four years ago, will be eager for a chance to make amends at the home of snooker, where he was beaten 10-7 by Sam Baird in the first round in 2016.

On the whole, it has been a fairly disappointing season so far for White, with runs to the quarter-finals of the Shanghai Masters and Northern Ireland Open providing his best performances.

Although the world number 27 will be considered as one of the favourites to prevail and qualify for the Crucible, he knows not to take anything for granted during the notorious qualifying phase, having been shocked by Craig Steadman in the second round in 2015.

Nevertheless, the 25-year-old will certainly be pumped up for the sport’s blue-riband event and has won four of his six previous meetings with Mehta, who missed out on last year’s competition with a recurrent neck injury.

The Indian cueist has been forced to adapt a different stance in order to overcome the long-standing problem, and has struggled to really kick on during this season as a result.

In fact, the former Indian Open finalist’s best run came when reaching the Last 32 of the International Championship. However, with this being his first year back on the tour, the world number 98 is safe from relegation and recently claimed a morale-boosting scalp when defeating world number seven Barry Hawkins to qualify for the China Open in January.

He will look to draw inspiration from that result in his bid to cause another upset here. The match will be contested over the best of 19 frames at Ponds Forge International Sports Centre, with the winner playing either Ross Muir or Gareth Allen in the second qualifying round.

Play gets underway at 10am BST with the first nine frames, before a maximum of 10 will occur when they resume at 7pm.

Thursday April 6    Round One 

10am

35 Mark Joyce v Jordan Brown          

36 David Grace v Thor Chuan Leong

39 Dominic Dale v Boonyarit Keattikun          

40 Daniel Wells v Adam Stefanow     

41 Gary Wilson v Josh Boileau          

42 Thepchaiya Un-Nooh v Peter Lines          

43 Ross Muir v Gareth Allen  

44 Michael White v Aditya Mehta       

47 Martin O'Donnell v Jackson Page 

48 Ricky Walden v Hammad Miah     

49 Michael Holt v Hamza Akbar         

2.30pm

15 Nigel Bond v Ng On Yee   

20 Sam Baird v Ross Vallance          

23 Zhou Yuelong v Christopher Keogan        

24 Ian Burns v Ian Preece     

25 Alfie Burden v Adam Duffy

26 Jamie Jones v Jamie Curtis-Barrett          

31 Rhys Clark v Wayne Townsend    

32 David Gilbert w/o Patrick Wallace 

33 Joe Perry v Zack Richardson        

34 Mei Xi Wen v Akani Songsermsawad

7pm

35 Mark Joyce v Jordan Brown          

36 David Grace v Thor Chuan Leong

39 Dominic Dale v Boonyarit Keattikun          

40 Daniel Wells v Adam Stefanow     

41 Gary Wilson v Josh Boileau          

42 Thepchaiya Un-Nooh v Peter Lines          

43 Ross Muir v Gareth Allen  

44 Michael White v Aditya Mehta       

47 Martin O'Donnell v Jackson Page 

48 Ricky Walden v Hammad Miah     

49 Michael Holt v Hamza Akbar