The World Snooker Championship started 5 days ago and the first round is almost over. The surprises did not take long to appear at the Crucible, among those eliminated in the first round are also the multiple world champions Mark Selby and Mark Williams, but also Luca Brecel, the winner of last year.
Today it was also Ding Junhui’s turn to say goodbye to the Sheffield competition. The 2016 finalist starred in a dramatic match against Jack Lisowski. The Englishman led 9-7, but Ding came back to send the match into the decider. There, the Chinese had the opening shot, after which Lisowski managed a phenomenal long shot and then developed a winning break, winning 10-9.
World Snooker Championship | 7 seeds have already been eliminated
Ding Junhui was the 7th seed eliminated in round 1, after Luca Brecel (9-10 with David Gilbert), Gary Wilson (5-10 with Stuart Bingham), Mark Williams (9-10 with Si Jiahui), Zhang Anda (4-10 with Jak Jones), Mark Selby (6-10 with Joe O’Connor) and Ali Carter (7-10 with Stephen Maguire).
Since the introduction of the 32-player main draw system (16 seeds) in 1982, only 3 times have so many seeds made it out of the first round. The negative record is 8, achieved in the 1992 and 2012 editions, while in the 2016 edition, 7 favorites left the contest in the first round.
From the first round, there are still 4 matches to be played, so there is a possibility that the record will be broken. However, there are slim chances to reach 9 seeds eliminated in the first round. Mark Allen is already qualified for the round of 16, after winning the first session of the match with Robbie Williams 7-2, and Barry Hawkins has the ability to emerge victorious from the dispute with Ryan Day (4-5 after the first session). Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins are the final two seeds to enter the contest. “The Rocket” meets Jackson Page, and “The Wizard of Wishaw” takes on Jamie Jones.
As such, it is hard to believe that two of the 4 disputes in the 1st round that do not yet have an outcome will end with the victory of the outsider, so that we can talk about a historical first, with only 7 seeds reaching in the second round. Robert Milkins, Shaun Murphy, Kyren Wilson, Judd Trump and Tom Ford are the only players who have been straight into the main draw and advanced to the last eight so far.
The World Snooker Championship runs from 20 April to 6 May and has full coverage on Eurosport and the Eurosport app.
Tags: World Snooker Championship favorites fell heels alltime negative record fall
