Snooker World Championship quarter-finals preview

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The billing for the greatest snooker event in the calendar year, the World Championship, has certainly not disappointed.

The Crucible Theatre in Sheffield has already seen some memorable snooker and gripping action, with the quarter-finals starting on Tuesday.

Already the large crowds who have been in attendance at the Crucible have seen the current holder Mark Selby beaten by Yan Bingtao 13-10, in a match that featured the longest frame in Crucible history which lasted 85 minutes.

The opening quarter-finals will see Stephen Maguire face the World Ranked Number 1 Ronnie O’Sullivan. Bingtao is up against Mark Williams with Stuart Bingham facing Judd Trump, and Jack Lisowski playing John Higgins.

Crowd favourite O’Sullivan has already beaten Dave Gilbert 10-5 and Mark Allen 10-4 to reach this stage of the tournament.

After comfortably seeing off Allen, O’Sullivan recorded his 71^st career win at the Championships, which also took him clear for the number of matches won by a single player at the tournament.

O’Sullivan has now reached the quarter=final stage of the Championship for the 20^th time in his career. Aiming to win his sixth World Championship, ‘The Rocket’ will start a very strong favourite to beat Maguire.

The Scotsman has so far beaten Shaun Murphy in a close-run affair 10-8 before getting the better of Zhao Xintong 13-9 and will be looking to claim his first ever World Championship title after being a semi-finalist twice in 2007 and 2012.

World ranked number eight Williams faces the 16^th ranked player in the world Bingtao.

Williams has already looked in sensational form, with the 47-year-old rolling back the years with comfortable victories over fellow Welshmen Jackson Page 13-3 and Michael White also 10-3.

Williams will be looking to pick up his fourth World Championship crown after previous successes in 2000, 2003 and more recently 2018.

China’s Yan has reached the semi-final stages after victories over Selby and Chris Wakelin of England.

An all-English affair featured world number four Trump up against Bingham, currently ranked 12 in the world. Trump had to dig deep to book his place in the semis after a narrow 13-11 win over Anthony McGill, whilst Bingham has so far seen off Lyu Haotian 10-5 and Kyren Wilson 13-9.

The 2019 champion Trump will be looking for his second World Championship, whilst Essex born Bingham is after his second after winning the title in 2015.

The final quarter-final match up will see Lisowski face Higgins in the best of 25 frames.

Higgins, the veteran at 47, has already won the title no less than four times, with his last success back in 2011.

But for Lisowski, ranked 14 in the world, this will be his first semi-final at Sheffield, having previously never reached the quarter-finals.

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