GARY Mawson reckons the step out of the spotlight of the Reebok’s main stage contributed to his first round exit at the UK Open.

The US-based Canadian, whose family come from Bolton, suffered an early defeat to Dylan Duo on Thursday night.

He had begun the evening by ploughing through tractor driver Ashley Whisker in front of the TV cameras in the preliminary round but admits he found the switch to the more claustrophobic smaller stages hard to adjust to.

“There’s a massive difference between being up there, and playing at the sides of the arena,” he said. “Of course, you want to get up on stage, but to start there and then go backwards is difficult.

“There’s a lot more to contend with – and fair play to Dylan, he did it much better than I did on the night.

“You have to prove yourself to stay on the top stages. Until you are a Phil Taylor or a Raymond van Barneveld, you are going to have to handle these kind of things.”

A 6-2 victory over Whisker included checkouts of 127, 113, and 100, but despite staying in the game until the latter stages against Gibraltar number one Duo, Mawson confessed he was not on his game.

“The best thing that happened up there was my checkouts in the first game,” he said. “I had a few ton-plus finishes.

“I wanted to get up there and get it done quickly, because in my mind I had three matches I wanted to get through.

“I had some chances against Dylan but didn’t take them, and he certainly did, so I can’t have any complaints at all.”

The 46-year-old also revealed that he had narrowly missed out by just £100 on moving straight into the second round, having finished outside the top 64 players on the Order of Merit system used to rank entrants.

Mawson will now move on to Players Championship events in Barnsley and Holland in the next fortnight.