WHAT a difference 24 hours made for Joe Perry in the UK Championship this week. On Tuesday, he produced one of the best performances of his career to beat world number 1 Ronnie O Sullivan in the second round - but on Wednesday he was knocked out of the c

WHAT a difference 24 hours made for Joe Perry in the UK Championship this week.

On Tuesday, he produced one of the best performances of his career to beat world number 1 Ronnie O'Sullivan in the second round - but on Wednesday he was knocked out of the competition by Marco Fu.

Perry, from Chatteris, was confident of continuing his good form into his quarter-final tie against the Hong Kong player, but struggled to repeat his brilliant performance from 24 hours earlier.

Evenly balanced at 4-4 after the afternoon session, Fu came out fighting for the evening session and raced into a 6-4 lead.

Perry pulled one frame back with a break of 98 but fell 7-5 behind in the next. He was struggling to reproduce that sparkling form.

Fu took an 8-5 lead with a break of 85, but missed a simple red in the next frame.

Perry took advantage and won the frame with a break of 84, rekindling that fighting spirit, but after pulling another frame back he lost out in a tense 16th frame.

Perry had outplayed O'Sullivan the night before, winning seven consecutive frames to win the second round match 9-5. His performance made O'Sullivan see red in one frame - the Rocket missed a red when 23-0 down but flicked the cue ball and walked out of the arena.

Perry announced afterwards he was no longer intimidated by playing who's regarded by many as the best snooker player in history.

"I've played him a few times this season and I feel comfortable against him now, I'm not intimidated," he said.