Hunter has cancer but vows to play in Sheffield
Paul Hunter has been diagnosed with cancer but the Yorkshireman still intends to compete in the Embassy World Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield this month.
The world No4 reached the quarter-finals of last week's China Open while awaiting the results of a biopsy on six cysts which were removed from his colon by keyhole surgery last month.
However, he has withdrawn from his Betfred Premier League match against Hong Kong's Marco Fu at the Corn Exchange, Ipswich, tonight and is due to see a specialist tomorrow.
The news has come as a shock to the 26-year-old's fellow players. "It's the kind of news that puts things in perspective," said Stephen Hendry. "It's the kind of thing that happens to other people, not one of your own. I'd just like to say on behalf of myself and all the other players and staff within 110sport that we wish Paul a speedy and full recovery."
Hunter is due to play Nottingham's Michael Holt, a qualifier, in the opening round of the world championship on Sunday week, and his manager Brandon Parker said his player would have further hospital tests before and during the tournament.
He will then undergo treatment, and in an official statement he assured his supporters that he intended to be "as tenacious and positive in fighting the disease" as he had been in his playing career.
Hunter, three times a winner of the Wembley Masters, is one of the favourites to win the world championship, but he almost withdrew from last month's Irish Masters in Dublin because of stomach pains.
At the time he said: "The specialist wanted to know whether I'd ever had a stomach operation as he couldn't find one of my kidneys. But I hadn't, so goodness knows what it's all about."
Hunter, who lost to the 1997 world champion Ken Doherty in Beijing last week, had surgery to remove a cyst from a testicle before the 2002 world championship.
