AS a St Johnstone supporter, Scott Donaldson comes armed with an intimate understanding of the difficulties of continually having to overturn the odds. The 23-year-old, listed No 66 in the world snooker rankings, produced an act of giant killing which Tommy Wright and his unheralded Perth side would have been proud of this week. Few gave him much hope going in against Mark Selby, the World No 1 and defending UK and World Champion, at the UK championship at the Barbican in York, but he knocked in breaks of 90, 87, 77 and 84 in the course of a 6-3 second round win.

As Wright and his chums would be able to tell him, though, following it up day after day, week after week, is the really difficult part. Along in the next round came Li Hang of China, and in a sport where the strength and depth at world level has never been greater, now it was Li who turned the tables with a 6-1 win. Undeterred, Donaldson will look to piece together more demonstrations of his undoubted potential on the home soil of this week’s Scottish Open at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow.

“In terms of the opponent, it probably is one of the biggest wins of my career,” said Donaldson. “It was satisfying because Mark would definitely have been trying his balls off to win that game. But while I am glad to get the win, I have played to that standard many times, and it is trying to repeat that performance which is the difficult thing.

“Snooker is funny, it is not like any other sport,” he added. “If the balls don’t agree with you on the day, there is not much you can do. Even when I played my next match, I didn’t really play that bad. Li was just phenomenal and I didn’t really get any chances. I’ve been trying to work on the psychology of that for years. Nowadays I just try to play to a good level, and there’s not much more I can do. If I get beaten, I shake hands and move on.”

Donaldson, who brought the 2012/13 European Amateur championship home to Scotland, is plugging away just fine on the tour, but while certain other winners of that title have gone on to bigger and better things – Belgium’s Luca Brecel is No 13 in the world, while Mark Allen of Northern Ireland is in the top 10 – making that next big step remains elusive. It has only given the Scot greater appreciation of what it takes to reach the top, in the manner of his idols Stephen Hendry and John Higgins. While players no longer need to dig into their own pockets for sizeable entry fees, the competition levels have never been higher.

“I didn’t ever think I would get this far and I have kept improving along the way … unfortunately everyone else has as well!” says Donaldson. “I did get to the semi-finals of a ranking event last season, the Welsh Open, and that was a good achievement, but it is like a vicious circle. The players all know you are playing well, so they seem to raise their levels a bit more. That is why I respect the top guys so much. I do watch videos of Stephen Hendry and he was phenomenal, but that era has gone now, and the standard for the whole tour is so high now that I just can’t see anybody dominating. I would love to play at the Crucible, but I’ve never done it. Last year I lost 10-9 in the second last round of qualifying after I was 5-0 down, then 9-8 up.”

As for the Scottish context, simply getting major tournaments played up here is a start. On Donaldson

previous visit to this venue he got up close and personal with John Higgins, this year’s World Championships runner-up, albeit in a 4-0 defeat. “I didn’t play well that day, but it was great to play John in Glasgow, and the crowd was really good that day. I am massively into football - St Johnstone just don’t get any credit, we have such a small budget, and we are constantly getting top six. Obviously John [Higgins] is a big Celtic fan and Graeme [Dott] is a big Rangers fan so whenever I am playing either of them I try to wind them up a wee bit.”