Luca Brecel advanced to the last 16 of a ranking event for only the second time this season with victory over Zhou Yuelong on Wednesday.
The Belgian Bullet has endured a torrid time of it since memorably capturing the World Snooker Championship trophy at the Crucible Theatre in May, 2023.
Early exits in ranking tournaments have become the norm for Brecel, who went through the entirety of the 2023/24 campaign boasting just one quarter-final appearance.
Still officially ranked number seven in the world thanks to the ยฃ500,000 that he won in Sheffield, Brecel has been teetering way down on the provisional end-of-season standings.
Incredibly, the situation had become so drastic that there were genuine concerns that the 29 year-old could end the term outside the world’s top 64 and without a professional tour card.
However, Brecel edged compatriot Julien Leclercq 4-3 in the first round of this week’s Scottish Open in Edinburgh.
Breaks of 103, 91, and 57 have subsequently helped him overcome Zhou in the last 32, where he set up a super showdown with Ding Junhui.
Brecel has fond memories of the Scottish Open having previously etched his name onto the Stephen Hendry Trophy by beating John Higgins in the 2021 final.
With his provisional end-of-season ranking now up to 56, and with an ยฃ18,000 buffer to the top 64 cut-off point for tour survival, Brecel might be able to relax a little more.
Ding, meanwhile, reached the last 16 of the season’s third Home Nations series tournament with a 4-2 defeat of Jackson Page.
Kyren Wilson and Neil Robertson, winners of the Northern Ireland and English Opens respectively, both crashed out, however.
World champion Wilson was downed 4-2 by Stephen Maguire while Robertson lost 4-1 to Saturday’s Snooker Shoot Out champion Tom Ford.
Home favourite Higgins and two-time former Scottish Open winner Mark Selby were other high-profile players to bow out.
Higgins was pipped in a 4-3 thriller by Barry Hawkins and Selby lost to Noppon Saengkham – last season’s beaten finalist in this comp.
Yet there are plenty of big names still in the hunt for the ยฃ100,000 top prize at the Meadowbank Sports Centre.
Mark Allen prevailed from a high-scoring battle with Ryan Day in which the pair combined to score four centuries and two other frame-winning contributions.
Ali Carter and Xiao Guodong, already ranking event winners this season, edged Robbie Williams and Jak Jones respectively in deciders.
Jack Lisowski comfortably bagelled Si Jiahui, while Stuart Bingham, Chris Wakelin, and Wu Yize progressed with 4-2 scorelines.
Among the others to make it through were Chinese trio Long Zehuang, Xing Zihao, and Lei Peifan – the latter beating Shaun Murphy.
The round of 16 takes place on Thursday, with live coverage for viewers in Europe continuing on discovery+ and Eurosport.
2024 Scottish Open draw
Round of 16 (bo7)
Long Zehuang vs Tom Ford
Lei Peifan vs Stuart Bingham
Noppon Saengkham vs Ali Carter
Jack Lisowski vs Mark Allen
Wu Yize vs Barry Hawkins
Chris Wakelin vs Xing Zihao
Luca Brecel vs Ding Junhui
Xiao Guodong vs Stephen Maguire
Click here for up-to-date results
(snooker.org)
Featured photo credit: WST
WST Play sounds promising for those like DC who don’t have traditional broadcast arrangements available to them. The archive content appeals to me.
Promising in theory, but my expectations for it are pretty low based on what’s gone before with a shoddy Matchroom streaming service and the atrocious WST live scoring/draw pages. Let’s see.
I thought you might say that! I hope this proves an upgrade for you.
Me too. I’ll keep you posted!
The reporting on snooker overall is just great. As a fan I’d like to see the monetary breakdown for each player showing what he (she) won for their participation in the event. We often see how much the top prize is but no mention of all the revenue paid. Keep up the great work.
You can find much more information about rankings and earnings over at snooker.org. In a dream scenario, I would have all of that here. But it’s too time consuming to maintain unfortunately.