Here are WST reports on what happened on the first day of the 2025 International Championship Qualifiers

Higgins Earns Narrow Win Over Pullen

John Higgins narrowly avoided a second consecutive defeat against world number 103 Liam Pullen, winning 6-5 to qualify for the final stages of the International Championship.

Pullen beat Higgins 5-3 when they met in the Xi’an Grand Prix qualifiers earlier this month, and the 20-year-old nearly pulled off another shock win against his illustrious opponent. From 3-0 down this time, Pullen won four frames in a row, then shared the next two to lead 5-4. But four-time Crucible king Higgins won the last two to earn a spot in the final stages in Nanjing, China in November.

Neil Robertson made the 1,000th century break of his career during a 6-1 win over Umut Dikme, while Si Jiahui top scored with 89 in a 6-3 defeat of Sunny Akani.

Robert Milkins remains in danger of relegation from the tour at the end of this season and he lost 6-5 to Wang Yuchen. Ben Mertens fired breaks of 132 and 124 in a 6-3 victory over Matthew Selt while Mark Selby eased to a 6-0 success against Steven Hallworth, compiling runs of 124 and 131. Jack Lisowski saw off Bulcsu Revesz 6-2 with breaks of 54, 101, 69, 128, 51 and 69.

And here is Neil’s 1000th century break

Only four players have reached that “milestone”: Ronnie, John Higgins, Judd Trump and now Neil Robertson.

Congratulations Neil!

As alway all the detailed results are available on snooker.org

And as so often the “late” matches are not reported on. Amongst those “late matches” features the 6-4 victory by Liu Wenwei over Luca Brecel. It’s a really bad result for Luca and a really good one for Liu. Liu is 21, he is in his first year as a pro and had, so far, not won a single match in a straight knock-out format event. Luca made the only two big breaks in the match, a 81 and a 67. Luca is not “in danger ” but his results so far this season have been poor for a player of his quality. Other than a QF run in the 2025 English Open he’s done very little.

Another Belgian player whose results this season are worrying is Julien Leclercq but, at least he’s won his first round match in three occasions. The Belgians have opted to travel for every match/tournament rather than moving to the UK. Staying with their families is probably better for their mental health than living abroad, away from their loved ones, but it’s tiring.