On day 1, very unusually, we had two matches coming to a conclusion and both were totally one-sided affairs: it was by the same score, 10-2, that Mark Selby beat Fergal O’Brien and Stephen Maguire trashed Anthony McGill. So it was a very early night at the Crucible and Dennis Taylor had to produce an unscheduled exhibition to entertain the crowd. Why this year they changed the structure of the format, I don’t know. The Defending Champion always played his two sessions on day 1, but that used to be the only match to be completed on that day.

Here is the report on Worldsnooker:

Saturday 15 Apr 2017 09:29PM

Defending Champion Mark Selby brushed aside Fergal O’Brien in a 10-2 win to progress to the second round of the Betfred World Championship.

Selby has arrived in Sheffield off the back of one of his best ever seasons, having won four ranking titles in a single campaign for the first time. He’s lifted silverware at the Paul Hunter Classic, International Championship, UK Championship and China Open.

The damage today was done in an opening session which the world number one dominated, establishing an 8-1 advantage.

O’Brien looked jaded and that could be attributed to a record breaking final frame decider with David Gilbert in qualifying on Wednesday. They played out the longest ever professional frame, taking two hours and three minutes.

There was no let up from the World Champion as the evening session got underway. He took the first frame with a fine contribution of 92.

Irishman O’Brien won a tight 11^th to extend the match, but his resistance was soon ended. O’Brien looked in position to make it 9-3, but jawed a tough pot on the final black. Selby duly deposited the black to a baulk corner to clinch the tie.

“This time I’m coming here knowing what to expect as defending champion. With the season I’ve had I feel a lot more relaxed,” said 11-time ranking winner Selby. “I’m eager to hold on to the title and to win it for a third time and join even more greats such as Higgins and O’Sullivan. There’s only me and Mark Williams on two and then it jumps to Higgins with four. I’ll try my hardest to win again this year.”

O’Brien admitted that his exertions in qualifying may have played a factor this evening, but remained upbeat about his Crucible return.

“After the efforts of getting here there probably wasn’t a lot left in the tank,” said the 1999 British Open winner. “That night between the excitement of winning I only slept three hours on Wednesday and was up early Thursday.

“Even winning one frame today was enjoyable because the crowd were so supportive against me being whitewashed.”

Stephen Maguire scored an equally emphatic victory, winning a Scottish derby against Anthony McGill 10-2.

Maguire had lost in the first round at the Crucible in each of the last four years but this time he marched into the last 16 to face Judd Trump or Rory McLeod.

These two met in the opening round in 2015 when McGill came through the qualifying rounds and beat his older opponent. This time the roles were reversed, with McGill the seed and Maguire winning three matches at Ponds Forge last week. And five-time ranking event winner Maguire proved by far the stronger player today.

The 36-year-old led 7-2 after the first session, scoring 419 points without reply as he reeled off five frames in a row from 2-2. He extended that run to 447 points tonight before McGill finally potted a ball. But Maguire took that frame and then added the next with a break of 57 for 9-2. A run of 58 put him in charge of the next and he sealed the result by potting the final blue.

“Winning the three games at Ponds Forge gave me momentum and made me match sharp,” said Maguire, who reached the semi-finals here in 2007 and 2012. “I’m over the moon to have won here. I didn’t want my season to finish at the qualifiers.

“I feel for Anthony. He didn’t play anywhere near the level that he can play but that is what the Crucible can do to you. You want the ground to open up for you and he got that today, but he will be here a lot more than I will.

“I was sitting next to him and you don’t know whether to crack a joke or talk between frames. In the first couple we had a laugh and I thought it can’t go on like this. I had to be a bit nasty.

“Judd still has to win his match, people seem to be taking that for granted. Rory is a hard match player. He has won his three to get here so every credit to him. He’ll be reading headlines and up for the game against Trump. Everyone has written him off but snooker doesn’t work like that and the table can do crazy things. But it’s between Judd and Selby for player of the season, they’ve been unbelievable.

“I don’t really want the season to end but I’m glad that I’m through and I have five or six days off so I can go back to Glasgow. This is a great tournament, I was trying my hardest to win today so I can be part of it.”

A dejected McGill, who has won two ranking events this season but lacked consistency, said: “I had the chance to go 2-1 up and I missed a few chances to win that frame. Fair play to Stephen I thought he played really strong especially after 2-2.

“There were a lot of mistakes in the first four frames but after that he seemed to really turn it on and he deserved it. He looked sharp, a hell of a lot better than me. He gave me and absolute doing and it’s happened to the best of them.

“You’ve just got to take it on the chin. Look at Steve Davis, he came here and lost 10-1 in 1982, so if it can happen to him it can happen to anyone.

“I’m a little bit disappointed with my consistency, I would have liked to have gone deeper in more tournaments, but I won two of them so I can’t complain.”

Two other matches got underway in the afternoon, and both will conclude today. Again the first session concluded on the same scoreline, 5-4 with Ronnie narrowly leading Gary Wilson and Kyren Wilson just edging David Grace.

here is the report on Worldsnooker:

Saturday 15 Apr 2017 06:50PM

Ronnie O’Sullivan holds a slender 5-4 advantage following a Gary Wilson fightback in the opening round of the Betfred World Championship.

The Rocket comes into this season’s showpiece event off the back of a mixed campaign. He appeared in finals at the European Masters, Champion of Champions and UK Championship, but was runner-up on each occasion. He made history at the Masters in January where he lifted the title for a record seventh time after defeating Joe Perry 10-7 in the final.

Former China Open finalist Wilson is making his Crucible debut, but is full of confidence after a strong showing in the qualifiers, which included the second 147 break of his career.

The match had looked as if it could become a one sided affair in the early stages with O’Sullivan imposing his authority. The Rocket flew to a 4-1 advantage courtesy of breaks of 57, 58, 58, 63 and 122. O’Sullivan needed a snooker on the final red to tie the sixth frame. He got it and converted the respot to open up a 5-1 lead.

Wilson showed great resilience to keep himself in the match. Runs of 62 and 63 helped him to reduce the deficit to 5-3 and there was then a dramatic last frame of the session. The world number 59 required a snooker in the final frame. He extracted a foul from O’Sullivan on the green and got the remaining colours to take his third frame in a row and trail by just 5-4.

Kyren Wilson is also ahead by a 5-4 scoreline in his opening round tie with Yorkshire’s David Grace.

The Warrior took the first two frames, before Grace pegged him back to 2-1. He re-established his advantage in the fourth thanks to a run of 72. However, Grace made a break of 75 to make it 3-2.

Wilson won the following two frames, but the Yorkshireman hit back once more. He claimed the final two frames to trail by just one frame going into the concluding session.

Both best of 19 ties will be played to a conclusion tomorrow.

This are the stats in the Ronnie v Gary Wilson match for now:

In this match there were 9 breaks over 50 in 9 frames, 3 by Gary, 6 by Ronnie including a 122 that was the only century on the day. So this was a very high quality session. As a comparison Mark Selby made “only” 5 breaks over 50, and no century, in winning his best of 19 last 32 match yesterday, over an opponent who’s highest break was 32, and Mark’s pot success, 91%, was slightly lower than Ronnie’s current 92% . And yet, Mark Selby won whilst I’m far from confident that Ronnie will win today. If he doesn’t it would be only the 4th time, in 25 appearances, that he would lose in the first round. One of those occurrences came in 2000, when Ronnie was beaten 10-9 by David Gray. In that match Ronnie had made 8 breaks over 50, including 5 centuries, and still lost … evidence that you can play outstanding and it may not be enough. Anyway, let’s wait and see … and cross fingers (en toes)

Yesterday saw the conclusion of the qualifying rounds and a few results that, once again, show that those who “know better” on social media are not always right.

Here is the Crucible draw:

Mark Selby v Fergal O’Brien
Ryan Day v Xiao Guodong
Neil Robertson v Noppon Saengkham
Marco Fu v Luca Brecel

Shaun Murphy v Yan Bingtao
Ronnie O’Sullivan v Gary Wilson
Liang Wenbo v Stuart Carrington
Ding Junhui v Zhou Yuelong

Stuart Bingham v Peter Ebdon
Kyren Wilson v David Grace
Mark Allen v Jimmy Robertson
John Higgins v Martin Gould

Barry Hawkins v Tom Ford
Ali Carter v Graeme Dott
Anthony McGill v Stephen Maguire
Judd Trump v Rory McLeod

You will be able to follow results, and see the matches schedules on snooker.org

Now a few thoughts about the last round of qualifiers yesterday in Ponds Forge.

First, Mark Williams, who should have been at the Crucible by right, in my opinion, will not be there at all. He failed to qualify. Yesterday, against Stuart Carrington, he didn’t play well and his opponent was very solid. None of “Willo’s” matches were easy and, already in round 1, he admitted he was still feeling tiredness from his efforts in China. It is a crying shame. That said Stuart Carrigton deserved the win and I’m wishing him good luck next week.

Next, make no mistake, all those who qualified are playing well and none of the seeds should take them for granted. The pressure is on the seeds now. Ranking wise it’s £25000 or nothing, that’s huge and they come there cold.

Now about the ones “who know better” … there was much talk about the danger-men, the ones the seeds would want to avoid at all cost: David Gilbert, Michael White, Mark Williams, Michael Holt. Well the seeds can relax, they won’t face them, they didn’t qualify. This is by no way a dig at the players I just listed, it’s a dig at those who systematically underestimate some of the less-known players or the ones they don’t fancy for some reason.

I already wrote about Mark Williams above.

Michael White was completely outplayed by Gary Wilson and I wasn’t surprised one bit, I had seen Gary play before. Gary played very well, nothing flashy but solid and efficient. Ronnie will need to be on his game to beat him. Gary though is making his debut at the Crucible. It can be intimidating.

Michael Holt played well too, but Peter managed to stay close and as I expected if that were the case, as pressure piled, Michael sometimes pushed the boat out and Peter duly punished him. It went to a decider and tense doesn’t even start to describe it. Before the match, I wondered on twitter why nobody fancied Peter to win. “Too tough a draw” was the answer. “Too tough a player to be ignored” is the lesson off this one.

David Gilbert was in front for most of his match against Fergal O’Brien and looked very dangerous indeed. But discard Fergal at your peril … he grinded his win out. The decider lasted for over two hours, the longest ever frame in history by far (the previous record was “only” 93 minutes). Fergal was warned for unnecessary slow play during this frame, a rule the referees rarely apply and all credits to the referee in charge for doing it under the circumstances. But Fergal won eventually and the rest is history…

Elsewhere Yan Bingtao convincingly beat Alexander Ursenbacher in the tie of the youth. If there is one to watch among the younger generation it’s this boy. At only 17, he broke in the top 64 in his first season and qualified for the Crucible. He’s incredibly mature for his young years.

Zhou Yuelong also won, beating Ben Wollaston in a deciding frame. It wasn’t pretty at times, but the temperament Zhou showed during the decider was quite remarkable. He was way behind and looked dead and buried, but found a way to win. Tough on Ben, it has to be said.

Graeme Dott found himself 4-0 down against Jamie Jones who was flying. But Dotty’s grit is legendary and the “snooker terrier” did it again. He bit back and eventually won. Another one nobody should ever write off in a long format, even on the back of a bad season!

Hossein Vafaei fell short against Tom Ford. Tom played well, scored well and eventually his experience prevailed against the young Iranian; he won by 10-8. But Hossein did enough to secure his last 64 spot, he’s currently provisionally 58th, and that in itself is an achievement after all the visa woes he’s had to face.

David Grace beat Akani Songsermsawad, and I like both of them. Akani will stay on the tour via the one year list. David, one of the nicest person you could possibly meet, will be a popular debutant. David does a lot for the amateur game, really a lot, and he’s always smiling too … oh, and, he’s a talented painter.

I won’t go into that many details this time but here are a few points of interest regarding round 2 in Ponds Forge that concluded this morning around 2:30 am … no kidding.

Let’s start with the good news: a very significant number of young, non-British payers have progressed into the third and last round of the qualifyers: Zhou Yuelong (China), who breaks into the top 32 with this win, Yan Bingtao (China), Akani Songsermsawad (Thailand), Alexander Ursenbacher (Switzerland) and Luca Brecel (Belgium). Why is it good news? Because the sport wants and needs to become more global, more international and because its future depends on the young ones coming through.

There were a number of noticeable casualties: Mark Davis, Joe Perry, the Masters runner-up, Ken Doherty, Joe Swail, Alan McManus, who reached the SF at the Crucible last year, Anthony Hamilton, the recent German Masters Champion, to name a few. It’s particularly sad for Joe Swail and Ken Doherty who both lose their professional status, and probably even more painful for Ken as this year is the 20th anniversary of his win at World Championship.

Reanne Evans and Peter Lines fairy tales came to an end. Reanne in particular will have regrets: she had a stinker of a first session and trailed by 6-1 after the first day, she eventually lost by 9-6, so she was the better player on the second day, and so many frames were decided on the colours. This is a match she could have won and she knows it. But she gave it her all yesterday and she can be proud of herself.

Mark Williams was made to work as he was taken to a decider by an excellent Liam Highfield. He’s now facing another stern test in Stuart Carrington. If he comes through, it’s to be seen how much he will have left in the tank for the main event.

The conditions were difficult and that’s an understatement. The airco failed and it was so hot inside that players were allowed to take off their bowties, and referees, their jackets. It was kicks galore on the tables and the players frustration was clear for all to see. We had a few cue bangs, and even the usually very cool Nigel Bond was seen punching the table at one point. It’s hard enough out there, without the added difficulties generated by heavy conditions combined with kicks every odd shot.

As we are about to start round 2 today, it’s time to reflect on what happened in the four previous days. But before that I want to say that going to Ponds Forge to watch this event is something I would recommend to every snooker fan. Contrary to the main event, it’s totally affordable, you can watch plenty of snooker, excellent matches, filled with tension, you are not stuck to one seat, and your view isn’t obscured by the people in front of you even if you are not that tall. If you want a break, you won’t reflect that you’re maybe wasting a little fortune of a ticket doing just that. I totally enjoy it.

Now to the heart of the matter …

Obviously I didn’t watch every match (with 11 going on simultaneously that would be impossible anyway) and so I can only comment on a few. Here is my pick.

Reanne Evans beats Robin Hull by 10-8

This, no doubt, was the big surprise of day 1. Robin is a very, very good player and not many, not even Reanne’s biggest fans, really expected this although … as I wrote in my preview, she did run Ken Doherty very close two years ago. Robin of course had all the pressure and he was fighting for his professional status; indeed now he has to rely on other results to stay on the main tour via the one year list. Maybe that was a factor. But mainly, it was Reanne’s win, not Robin’s defeat. She stuck in there, stubbornly, she fought on every ball, she won the close frames. He highest break was “only” 69 and it came at a crucial moment, allowing her to steal frame 14 and make it 7-7.

here is what she had to say after her match:

Peter Lines beats Thepchaya Un-Nooh by 10-9

“Theppy” is one of the heaviest scorers in the game, he made 9 breaks over 50 in this match and he still lost! He lost to a very experienced and determined Peter Lines, fresh from his World Seniors title. Peter actually played his best snooker with his back against the wall: he was 9-7 down and he closed the match with breaks of 69 and 77. Up to that point he only had scored two breaks over 50, including a 133 it has to be said. Again this was a tale of grit, determination and experience speaking louder than heavy scoring.

Here is what Peter had to say after his win:

Jack Lisowski beats Jimmy White by 10-7

This was a tense match if there ever was one and yet both players stuck to their own game: attack. I was a great match to watch and one I would have totally enjoyed if I hadn’t known what was at stake. I do like Jack Lisowski a lot and he too needed the result, so I’m pleased for him and I wish to see him at the crucible next week but … but for Jimmy White this was a do or die match. This defeat means the end of a 37 years long career entertaining the fans. This was his 99th match at the World Championship and it could very well be the last ever he played as a professional. He played it with heart and with panache, as he did all his career. But when he paused for a minute, looking around the arena after packing his cue, then left, head down, whilst the crowd applauded him … I felt heartbroken. Jimmy loves snooker like no one else, it’s his life. How will he cope, I wonder. But he’s always been someone who bounces back. He will again.

There is talk everywhere on social media that surely he will get a wildcard, like Steve Davis and James Wattana were offered one. I’m not so sure: I believe that this was mainly offered by Barry Hearn so that Steve Davis, his close friend and business partner could continue to play. Steve has now moved on to a career as a DJ and his life revolves around his other passion: music…  We’ll see.

Anyway, time will tell, and here is Jack interview after his win:

Mark Williams beats Zhao Xintong by 10-7

As I wrote in a previous post  I really want to see mark Williams at the Crucible. He should be  there by right. But, he isn’t and he has to win three matches to get there. His first opponent was Zhao Xintong, one of Ronnie’s young protégés. I would have wanted Zhao to win against (nearly) anybody else. This was a match where the momentum switched between the players several times. Here is the report on Worldsnooker with Mark’s quotes:

Saturday 8 Apr 2017 10:57PM

Mark Williams won five frames in a row to battle past talented Chinese 20-year-old Zhao Xintong 10-7 at Betfred World Championship Qualifying.

The Welshman came agonizingly close to pushing himself into the world’s top 16 and avoiding qualifying at Ponds Forge. He needed to win last week’s China Open to pip compatriot Ryan Day. Williams went all the way to the final, where he lost out a hard fought battle to the current World Champion Mark Selby.

This morning’s play saw Williams establish a 4-0 advantage, however Zhao fought back valiantly to trail by just one frame going into tonight at 5-4.

Zhao, who is already developing a reputation for his aggressive playing style, attacked from the off this evening. His bold approach was rewarded, as he claimed the opening three frames, making breaks of 58 and 78 along the way to lead 7-5.

It was at this point that Zhao’s aggressive shot choices started to go astray. Williams punished some errant shots, compiling runs of 60, 86 and 51 on his way to five in a row and a 10-7 win.

Williams remarked: “I haven’t really got over the China trip yet, but somehow I found something from 7-5 down and it is a really good win for me.

“I’m just over the moon that I managed to get through,” said the two-time World Champion. “He is the one that everybody wanted to avoid. I just had a feeling I was going to get him.

“I’ve been watching him a lot and if anything he has really frustrated me. He has the ability to win tournaments, he is that good. He just goes for the most outrageous shots that you shouldn’t be going for and that is the only reason that he hasn’t got to the latter stages of tournaments yet. If you could get him down to my club for 12 months I think I could make him a tournament winner.”

Mark’s assessment on Zhao pretty much matches what Ronnie said about him on multiple occasions. All the talent in the world but still raw.

Now just a few words on the other matches.

I also watched Yan Bingtao beat Sam Craigie by 10-8, in a very, very tactical battle of wits. I’m very happy that Yan won in the end. This is nothing against Sam, who is an excellent player in all departments, but I was upset at some of the comments on social media suggesting that Yan wasn’t “that good after all”, that he was made to look “ordinary”, etc. The lad is 17 folks, only 17! He’s in his first year as a pro and already broke into the top 64. Ordinary? Really? Would you say that if he was British? I’d bet my life on the fact that you wouldn’t. So yes, I’m very, very pleased that in the end Yan came from 8-4 down to beat Sam by 10-8 winning six frames on the trot.

And finally I want to say that this year at least the “invites” did work, well many of them did. Other than Reanne and Peter winning, we also had Adam Stefanow and Jackson Page running their pro opponents, very, very close. Some people suggested that they have no place in this, that they should go to te Q-School top-ups. Well they proved that they are better than those top-ups. Not to mention once again – yes a broken record I am and I persist – that the top-ups system is totally biased towards UK players because the Q-School is held in the UK only, as are the qualifiers, even for overseas events. They have more than their share of opportunities already. Good to see some different faces, and great that a few are doing really well.

Now back to Ponds Forge for round 2!

All detailed results can be found on Cuetracker