MATTHEW Stevens admitted he only had himself to blame after he crashed out in the first round of the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield.
Stevens fell to a 10-7 defeat to Hong Kong's Marco Fu despite mounting a stirring comeback from when he trailed nine frames to four.
Twice a runner-up at the Crucible, Stevens took down Fu in the first round 12 months ago on his way to the semi-finals.
But there was no repeat this time around and Stevens admitted the defeat was no more than he deserved after failing to produce his best on the big occasion.
"It was a struggle out there for a couple of days to be honest," he said.
"Marco just had to pick up the pieces when I missed really, I gave him far too many chances and missed a lot of easy balls. You cannot expect to play badly and win here.
"To be honest, I only got on the comeback trail because Marco started missing a few and gave me some chances.
"It's disappointing because you always want to do well here, but I did not play well enough to go through.
"It's even more frustrating because I have practised hard and I was desperate to produce something, but it just did not happen.
"There's nothing that I can do now."
There was more bad news for Welsh snooker fans as Dominic Dale, formerly of Llanfihangel-ar-Arth, went out in the first round, losing out 10-5 to world No. 3 Judd Trump.
Dale had briefly threatened an upset, but found Trump too hot to handle.