The first game of the round of 16 of this Snooker World Championship ended after only two sessions with 13-3: Debutant Jackson Page could not do much against mentor and training partner Mark Williams, who acted like a young god here.
Century-Hagel von Williams
Williams was up 7-0 yesterday with three centuries and five 50+ breaks and Page scraped the last frame of the session. So the big question this morning was unanimous: will there be a third session? Unfortunately, the picture of a debutant without a chance against a senior, uh veteran, uh legend from the 1992 class, playing with well-known flow, quickly arose again.
Page’s most painful memory will be the tenth frame, which he lost to black despite a 69 break. Page won the 15th frame, but that wasn’t enough. Mark Williams even missed in frame 16 with a score of 31, but Jackson Page couldn’t capitalize on that chance either. He played pink in position in an exemplary manner, but unfortunately missed the red ball played.
In the end, Mark Williams had six centuries (and ten 50+ breaks) played, which only Mark Selby has managed to do in a best-of-25. It’s the second time Williams has saved a session at the Crucible (after his 13-2 win over Quinten Hann a hundred years ago). He could still set or break another record during this World Cup: that of the most centuries at a World Cup.
Rocket O’Sullivan with an impressive performance
No, Mark Allen didn’t do too much wrong in the first session. The fact that he is still 2-6 behind is simply due to the skills of Ronnie O’Sullivan. He just won five frames in a row after 1-1. In the meantime, the statistics showed completely improbable numbers such as 100% hole success with long balls and 98% with the others. Only his safeties weren’t particularly safe at 36%. But who needs safeties if you won’t let your opponent at the table?
Only in the seventh frame did Mark Allen have a good chance after O’Sullivan missed. He made a nice break and could have narrowed it down to 2-5 here. But when the score was 53-57, he missed the green. Mark Allen was visibly frustrated, even though he was able to get the last frame before the break.
In the game Zhao Xintong against Stephen Maguire it is 3-5 after the first session. If things continue as before this afternoon (3:30 p.m.), then it will be a great match – and maybe finally the long-awaited, highly exciting game of the World Cup.
At the same time, the game between Mark Selby and Yan Bingtao starts.
Round of 16 completed
Yesterday still had Judd Trump and Noppon Saengkham booked their places in the round of 16. Trump had clearly held Hossein Vafaei, who played for greatness, in check with 10-4. He didn’t necessarily excel too much, but rather compensated for Vafaei’s weakness. He meets Anthony McGill.
Noppon Saengkham also had an invisible opponent against Luca Brecel and didn’t have to exert himself too much with his 10-5. As gratifying as I am about his advancement, he will definitely have to do more against his next opponent, because he will face John Higgins in the round of 16. This had prevailed in round one against Thepchaiya Un-Nooh.
The duel Kyren Wilson against Ding Junhui was very entertaining and ended 10-8. The game ended with the same result Jack Lisowski against Matthew Stevens. It takes a certain amount of masochism to be a fan of Lisowski (next game against Neil Robertson!). I’d rather not even mention Matty Stevens. Besides, he still had Yan Bingtao prevailed against Chris Wakelin.
As always, all schedules for the round of 16 as well as the seasons and (intermediate) results are available on our tournament website.
On my own account
Unfortunately, we can’t report on the World Cup as usual, because our team is a bit shaken by illness, then there are still tests to be taken and other unimportant things (like wage work) have to be done. Of course we try to write as much as possible and also on twitter to keep up with the action. If that’s not enough for you, then we would like to recommend the colleagues from Total Clearance, who do one every day Review of the games as a podcast bring.