By ADAM LAZZARI JOE PERRY will be hoping to replicate arguably the greatest feat in his 18-year snooker career this weekend, when he aims to beat world No. 1 Ronnie O Sullivan for the second time in less than four months. The Chatteris potter takes on th

By ADAM LAZZARI

JOE PERRY will be hoping to replicate arguably the greatest feat in his 18-year snooker career this weekend, when he aims to beat world No. 1 Ronnie O'Sullivan for the second time in less than four months.

The Chatteris potter takes on the current world champion in the semi-final of the 2008 PartyPoker.com Premier League snooker competition at the nearby Potters Leisure Resort, in Hopton-on-Sea, Norfolk.

The winner of this match will play either world No. 4 Mark Selby or world No. 6 Stephen Hendry in the final on Sunday.

Perry, who beat O'Sullivan for the first time in his first Premier League match, back in September, said: "Ronnie's a very tough player to beat, but I'm happy with the way I've been playing recently, and I'm feeling confident and relaxed about everything."

Perry finished second top of the seven-man Premier League table after drawing his last match 3-3 with Selby last Thursday.

The Chatteris man trailed 3-0 but came back with breaks of 115, 40 and 51 in the last three frames.

The result left Selby on top of the table.

Perry has won £25,000 in the Premier League already and there is £50,000 available for the winner and £25,000 for the runner-up this weekend.

The competition started in 1987 but has only recently attracted national media attention with matches now being shown on Sky Sports television.

World No. 12 Perry said: "Ronnie O'Sullivan is arguably the greatest player ever to pick up a snooker cue, Mark Selby is tipped to be a future world champion and Stephen Hendry is also one of the greatest ever snooker players, so it's good for me to amongst this sort of company.

"I've been around the top 15 players in the world for some time now but I'm having a good season and I hope to break into the top 10 in next year's rankings."

Joe Perry on his way to his first ever win over Ronnie O'Sullivan, in September. Mx05Perry