Let’s start with the Ronnie news first … As already mentioned by Ben in commentary, Ronnie has shared a statement regarding his “serial” withdrawals:
This is obviously not great, but it’s not a big surprise either as Ronnie has ample prior history of mental health struggles. I’m wishing Ronnie a full recovery, no matter how long it takes. His health the only important thing. After all, snooker is only a game and Ronnie has nothing to prove to anyone.
Now onto what happened yesterday on the baize in Llandudno. Here are the reports shared by WST:
Jackson Page boosted his hopes of becoming the first home winner of the BetVictor Welsh Open this century as he beat Tom Ford 4-0 to reach the quarter-finals in Llandudno.
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Mark Williams was the last Welsh player to win this title – or even reach the final – back in 1999. There’s a strong Welsh showing this time, with a record four players in the last 16, and Page looks a strong contender for the Ray Reardon Trophy. The 23-year-old from Ebbw Vale took just 50 minutes to beat Ford with a top break of 62, earning a tie with Pang Junxu or Luca Brecel.
Page reached his first ranking final at the Championship League at the start of this season, finishing runner-up to Ali Carter, and this would be the perfect week for a first title. “Welsh snooker is thriving, there are a lot of us on tour doing well,” he said. “This is a great venue, the fans have been brilliant and I am grateful for their support. I’m having a good season and I just want to have as many deep runs as I can.“
John Higgins reached his 145th ranking event quarter-final, just one off Ronnie O’Sullivan’s record of 146, with a 4-0 thrashing of Yuan Sijun. Higgins’ progress has been serene so far this week, winning three matches by a 4-0 scoreline, making three centuries and six more breaks over 50. Runs of 90 and 131 helped the 49-year-old Scot to a superb win over Yuan, keeping him on track for a record-extending sixth Welsh Open title.
“I’m delighted, I’ve played well in all three matches so far,” said Higgins, looking for his first ranking title since the 2021 Players Championship. “Usually you have at least one match which goes to the wire, so it’s been important to keep some energy for later in the tournament. My positional play has been good which means I’m not having to play too many recovery shots.”
Stephen Maguire reached his first quarter-final of the season with a 4-2 success against Sanderson Lam. Maguire came into this week needing to at least make the semi-finals to climb into the top 32 of the Johnstone’s Paint One-Year Rankings and qualify for next month’s World Grand Prix, and he is now just one win away from that target.
“I’ll need to find something before my next match,” said 2013 Welsh Open champion Maguire, whose top break today was 87. “I was struggling to control the white and I probably deserved to lose. I’ll phone John Higgins and see if he wants to go for dinner and give me a pep talk. I am in the quarter-finals so I’ll take it.”
Joe O’Connor also booked a place in the last eight as he showed his break-building class in a 4-1 win over Matthew Stevens, firing runs of 99, 87, 113 and 82.
Luca Brecel remained on track to win a first title since his Crucible triumph 21 months ago, beating Pang Junxu 4-1 to reach the quarter-finals of the BetVictor Welsh Open in Llandudno.
It could be a winner-takes-all scenario for Brecel if he makes it to Sunday’s final, as the title would also give him the £150,000 BetVictor Bonus awarded to the player who earns the most money across the four BetVictor Home Nations events this season. A further incentive for the Belgian is that a place in the final would get him into next month’s World Grand Prix in Hong Kong. But for now, Brecel won’t be looking beyond a battle with Jackson Page, the last remaining Welsh player, on Friday afternoon.
Since landing the world title in 2023, Brecel has dipped in and out of form, and was even in danger of tour relegation until his recent improvement. He reached the quarter-finals of the BetVictor Scottish Open and the final of the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship before Christmas and is enjoying another run this week.
“When I turn up at tournaments now I really want to go deep,” said 29-year-old Brecel, whose top break tonight was 69. “Before, if I wasn’t in a really good place I wanted to go home. Now I want to win the tournament or at least get to a quarter or semi-final. It’s fantastic to be in the mix again. I will enjoy playing Jackson, he is very attacking and very fast and a nice guy to watch.”
Mark Selby reached his 99th ranking event quarter-final with a 4-0 whitewash of Jamie Jones, setting up a blockbuster clash with John Higgins at 12pm on Friday. The pair met in the Unibet British Open final earlier this season, Selby winning 10-5, and the Englishman will be hoping to come out on top again as he chases back to back titles, having won the BetVictor Championship League Invitational last week.
Breaks of 73, 62 and 58 helped Selby to a comfortable victory. “I played well tonight apart from a couple of loose safety shots,” said the Leicester cueman, whose first ranking title came in this tournament back in 2008. “Jamie had a chance to win the first frame and if he had taken that he could have settled and made it a different match.
“I finished late last night (beating Elliot Slessor 4-3) so I only had around five hours sleep, I am flagging a bit now so hopefully I’ll sleep well tonight. John Higgins is a class act and I always look forward to playing him, as well as Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Williams because we don’t know how long they will keep playing so we have to cherish it.“
Ali Carter beat Ryan Day 4-1 to reach his first ranking event quarter-final since winning the BetVictor Championship League back in July. Breaks of 57 and 51 helped Carter set up a tie with Joe O’Connor.
Jack Lisowski was the last man into the quarter-finals and has made seven centuries in his three matches this week. Breaks of 123 and 131 helped him to beat Matthew Selt 4-2 and he now meets Stephen Maguire.
Jackson Page played well but Tom Ford was well below part and, actually, he didn’t look well at all. I’m not sure if the issues are “physical”, “mental” or both but Tom looked really ill out there.
Stephen Maguire didn’t play particularly well in beating Sanderson Lam but, at least, he stayed calm and didn’t allow his often volatile temperament to get the better of him.
I didn’t watch much of the evening session and don’t remember anything of what little I did watch. I was far too tired to stay focused. In his interview, quoted above, Selby mentioned his late finish on the previous day and sleep deprivation as a result. The schedule as it is may suit the British viewers1, especially those who don’t need to get up early for work or school on the next day, but for western mainland Europeans it’s not great and for eastern mainland Europeans watching the last match of the evening session is only an option if they don’t need to get up early on the next day. It’s far too late!
All the detailed results are available on snooker.org.
The quarter-finals today will be best of 9, with consecutive matches in the afternoon and “parallel” matches in the evening. I don’t like this “arrangement” although I understand the practical reasons behind it. The reason I don’t like it is because, from the semi-finals on there will be just one table and, more often than not it’s “table 1”, therefore we might have one player in the SFs who has never got the opportunity to play on that table yet, whilst the other three had that opportunity. That’s not fair. Tables are all supposed to play more or less the same but, actually, it isn’t the case as we all know!
- although even some of them complained ↩︎
Ronnie O'Sullivan 