JustBeingCP

I travelled to Sheffield this morning and visited the World Snooker Championships at the Crucible Theatre.

The tournament started on Saturday the 20th of April and is due to finish on Sunday May the 6th when the 2024 world champion will be crowned.

The draw for the first round took place live on BBC Radio 5 Live on Thursday the 18th of April with the likes of Snooker MC Rob Walker and world championship participant Mark Allan in attendance.

There was a noticeable absentee from the championships , Australia’s Neil Robertson who was knocked out in the final round of qualifying by Jamie Jones.

The First Round Draw

Luca Brecel vs David Gilbert

Robert Milkins vs Pang Junxu

Ali Carter vs Stephen Maguire

Shaun Murphy vs Lyu Haotian

Mark Selby vs Joe O’Connor

Kyren Wilson vs Dominic Dale

John Higgins vs Jamie Jones

Mark Allen vs Robbie Williams

Judd Trump vs Hossein Vafaei

Tom Ford vs Ricky Walden

Zhang Anda vs Jak Jones

Mark Williams vs Si Jiahui

Ding Junhui vs Jack Lisowski

Gary Wilson vs Stuart Bingham

Barry Hawkins vs Ryan Day

Ronnie O’Sullivan vs Jackson Page

The names that I have highlighted in bold were my match predictions for the first round of the championship.

The opening session of the first match on table one saw Belgium’s Luca Brecel take a 6 frames to 3 lead over England’s David Gilbert into the evening session.

Remarkably Gilbert went onto take victory in the final session of the match by 10 frames to 9 after winning the final 4.

The opening afternoon session on table one between Judd Trump and Hossein Vafaei finished 6 frames to 3 in favour of Trump going into the concluding session on the first Sunday of the tournament.

Trump went onto beat Vafaei by 10 frames to 5 which secured his place in round 2 at the Crucible.

Mark Williams opened his account in Sheffield with a tie against Si Jiahui where he was 5 frames to 4 up at the end of first session.

However Si Jiahui went onto knock out the Welshman after winning there first round match by 10 frames to 9.

Robert Milkins took on Pang Junxu in his first round and ended the first session trailing by a single frame.

Things did slightly improve fot the milkman despite missing a number of shots during the multiple frames played in session 2.

A deciding frame was required with the score at 9 frames a piece, it was Robert (the milkman) Milkins who clinched the decider and progressed to the second round.

Ronnie O’Sullivan started his first round match against Jackson Page with a 4 frames to 0 lead after the first mini session on the match.

O’Sullivan took an 8 frames to 1 lead over Jackson Page into the second session which meant he was only 2 frames away from a place in round 2.

He eventually beat Page by 10 frames to 1 which secured his place in the second round of this year’s championship.

There were some exceptional ties in the second round and I have highlight those in bold below:

The Second Round Draw

David Gilbert vs Robert Milkins

Judd Trump vs Tom Ford

Jak Jones vs Si Jiahui

Stephen Maguire vs Shaun Murphy

John Higgins vs Mark Allen

Joe O’Connor vs Kyren Wilson

Jack Lisowski vs Stuart Bingham

Ryan Day vs Ronnie O’Sullivan

The matches in bold are the ones that stood out for me in the second round of the tournament.

Round two saw players in matches that were the best of 25 frames in order to determine who progressed in to the quarter final stage.

David Gilbert took on Robert Milkins in the first match of the second round following his incredible victory on the opening day of the championship.

England’s David Gilbert took a 3 frames to 1 lead into the first mid session interval of the match,

Gilbert then led by 5 frames to 3 over the Milkman going into 2nd session of play which took place last Friday (26th of May, 2024).

He continued to play well in the first mini session of the second session and took an 8 frames to 4 lead into the break.

Gilbert went into the final session of the match on Friday evening leading by 12 frames to the Milkman’s 4.

It didn’t take long for him to secure his place in the quarter finals after a comfortable 13 frames to 4 victory.

Judd Trump started his second round clash against Tom Ford on Thursday, the 25th of April which saw him take a 6 frames to 2 lead over ford into the second session of the clash the following day.

Trump went into the mid session interval of the second session leading by 9 frames to 3 over England’s Ford.

He headed into the final session which took place on Saturday, the 27th of April 2024 with an 11 frames to 5 lead.

Trump eventually beat Ford by 13 frames to 7 to secure his place in the quarter finals and set up a meeting withbJak Jones.

Shaun Murphy took on Scotland’s Stephen Maguire for a place in the quarter finals at Crucible on Friday afternoon (26th of April).

The scores were level ( 2 frames all) at the first mid session interval of the match, so it was all play for going into the second half of the first session.

It was Scotland’s Stephen Maguire who took a 5 frames to 3 overnight lead into the second session of play.

Maguire continued to dominate the match and went into the third and final session with a 4 frame advantage over Murphy.

He eventually knocked out Murphy by 13 frames to 9 to set up a quarter final clash with David Gilbert.

The Quarter final Draw

David Gilbert vs Stephen Maguire

Judd Trump vs Jak Jones

Kyren Wilson vs John Higgins

Stuart Bingham vs Ronnie O’Sullivan

I’ve written the stand out match of the quarter finals in bold.

David Gilbert and Stephen Maguire started their quarter final clash by playing the first couple of sessions yeasterday (Tuesday the 30th of April).

It was Gilbert who was leading the match at the first mid session interval by 4 frames to 0 , leaving Maguire with it all to do after the break.

The man from Derby (David Gilbert) continued his dominance and took a 7 frames to 1 lead into the evening session.

The score was tied at 2 frames all heading into the mid session interval of the second session, the maverick needed to win 3 of remaining 4 frames of the session to have any chance of progressing.

The farmer took a 10 frame to 6 overnight lead into this afternoon’s concluding session with the maverick.

It didn’t take Gilbert long to beat Stephen Maguire by 13 frames to 8 and set up a meeting with John Higgins or Kyren Wilson in the semi finals.

The Semi Final Draw – The Single Table setup

David Gilbert vs Kyren Wilson

Jak Jones vs Stuart Bingham.

I have highlighted in bold my prediction for will make up 2024 world snooker championship finalists.

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Cam