MARK Williams is ready to go up against his ‘fourth son’ Jackson Page in a Gwent showdown at the World Snooker Championship, writes Joe Harrington.

The 47-year-old from Cwm beat compatriot Michael White 10-3 in the opening round of the tournament in Sheffield.

The three-time world champion produced a commanding performance featuring four centuries, including a 121 to finish the job.

Next up is a meeting with Page, the 20-year-old from Ebbw Vale who caused a round one upset on his Crucible debut by beating seed Barry Hawkins 10-7.

"That will be interesting, it will be tough,” said Williams. “He is not a friend, he is more my fourth son. “He comes to my house to play cards, for pizza with my [three] kids, golf, badminton, you name it, we do it together.”

Having three World Championship wins to his name already, Williams could be forgiven for not having the same competitive edge he once had.

However, this is not the case with the 47-year-old declaring: "I want to destroy him, that is no question.”

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“If I am going to lose to anybody and had to pick, it would be him,” he continued. “I will try my best to win but if I lose, I will have no problem at all. If it means he gets into the top 64 by beating me then I am half on his side anyway."

The match-up will surely provide some nice sentiment amongst the rivalry for both Williams and Page as they now look ahead to the clash, which gets under way on Thursday.

The underdog will be buoyed by his impressive win against Hawkins, which earned the praise of the Englishman.

“The way he finished off the match was very classy really,” he said. “For his first time here, he played very well.

“Every time I came close to him, he came up with the goods and didn’t really look like he was under pressure at any point in the match.

“Off the back of four hard wins in the qualifiers, he came here very sharp; he looked a lot sharper than I did, but all credit to him.

“I thought he might tweak towards the winning line, but there was no sign of that at all.

“I didn’t score very well throughout the match and the breaks I did make were unbelievably hard.

“He was making it look ridiculously easy. If he plays like that, he’s got a chance of going on a deep run here.”