Hampshire have a three-tipped potting attack in this year's Benson and Hedges Snooker Championship at the Willie Thorne Snooker Club with Daniele Zagaroli leading the way.

The Chandler's Ford cueman is joined by Damian Massey (New Milton) and Jason Weston (Portsmouth) who will compete from Saturday at Malvern for the chance of a place in the prestigious Benson and Hedges Masters at Wembley in February.

The tournament is not open to the world's top 16 but features players like Nigel Bond, James Wattana, Tony Drago, Darren Morgan and Dave Harold.

Zagaroli, who gave up playing snooker professionally three years ago but still remains in world's top 250, starts his campaign on Monday when he faces world number 70 Stuart Bingham and should he win world number 52 Rod Lawler will be waiting for him.

Zagaroli said: "It's not going to be easy but on my day I could beat anybody.

"I've played against the best in the world before with players like Mark Williams and Mark King and have given them a good run so I'm looking forward to it."

The following day will see Massey take on world number 185 Darren Limburg with the winner facing a daunting third-round tie against Jonathan Birch who has climbed into the world's top 50.

Weston, the highest ranked of our players at 120, will be the firm favourite against Alex Lambie who is ranked 149 places below him with his reward for victory a mouth-watering match against Tony Chappel, who is ranked only 30 places above him.

The players will all be relishing the prospect of big name stars if they can get through the early rounds with the possibility of Massey facing Darren Morgan in round five and Weston facing either the game's most promising young talent Marco Fu or Dave Harold in round six.

Zagaroli has the toughest draw, though, with all of his opponents in the world's top 70 which could see him face Bingham, Lawler, Matthew Couch, Gary Wilkinson, then either Dominic Dale or Marcus Campbell.

He said: "Realistically I'm not looking to win although it would be very nice. But to go through a couple of rounds would certainly be a good result for me.

"The main problem I face is not being able to get match practice against this quality of players which is how you improve but I have made a couple of centuries recently, so you never know."

If they were to progress then Massey and Weston would meet at the quarter-final stage with Zagaroli facing the winner in the semi-finals that would guarantee a local presence in the final.

It's a daunting prospect for the Hampshire players but the glittering prize of a place at the Wembley Masters with the big crowd, lights and television cameras is enough to motivate anybody.

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