Ben Woollaston conjured one of the big shocks of the 2025 World Snooker Championship after defeating Mark Selby 10-8 on Thursday in Sheffield.
The all-Leicester clash proved to be somewhat of a turgid affair with both players failing to produce fluent snooker.
Four-time world champion Selby had come into this edition at the Crucible Theatre on the back of some excellent form and was being tipped by many pundits as a contender again this year.
But the British and Welsh Open champion struggled throughout the game, with his opponent able to take full advantage to spring an unlikely upset.
Woollaston, appearing at the Crucible for the first time in 12 years, contributed just four half-century breaks but played some hardened match snooker to advance.
The 37 year-old, whose wife Tatiana officiated the 2024 UK Championship final in December, will face Si Jiahui in the second round of the 2025 World Snooker Championship.
“I’m just a bit shocked really,” a tired-looking Ben Woollaston told the World Snooker Tour after prevailing from the 10-hour slog.
“Because I haven’t been to the Crucible for so long, I never thought this day would happen to be honest.”
“Just to get here I was reasonably happy, because it had been so long. But I wanted to do myself justice.
“Obviously, the main thing was to win. But if I didn’t, I wanted to perform – I didn’t want to play poorly.
“It’s amazing, my oldest son Edward – I don’t know how he did it – to watch five hours one night and five hours the next night.
“He literally didn’t miss one shot, he stayed in there during the interval. It’s amazing that he did it.
“I see why people say [good things] about the Crucible, it’s like nowhere else that I’ve played. Obviously, I’ve not played the Masters or anything like that, but it’s special playing in there.
“It’s really tight, it’s not a massive venue. The people feel like they can touch you, they are that close. The crowd are normally 10-15 metres from the table.
“They are never that close. It’s just the history, and it’s a special theatre. It’s such a buzz with the noise when you come out.
“I can only imagine what it’s like when players come out for finals and it’s really loud. Rob Walker is brilliant at getting the crowd up for it. It gets your heart racing.”
Earlier on day six, Luca Brecel fought his way back from behind to oust Ryan Day in an entertaining, albeit at times low-quality, showdown that ended 10-7.
The 2023 champion is defending the £500,000 he earned two years ago and will plummet down the rolling two-year rankings if he doesn’t go deep again in this year’s tournament.
Brecel was nowhere near his best but was able to take advantage of an error-strewn performance from his opponent to claw back a 5-1 deficit and win nine out of the concluding 11 frames.
With the first round done and dusted, the round of 16 was also able to commence on Thursday.
Another shock is on the cards with Chris Wakelin, who has already dispatched 2010 champion Neil Robertson, orchestrating an early 6-2 advantage against Mark Allen.
It’s much closer in the match between John Higgins and Xiao Guodong, with the pair locked following their opening session at four frames apiece.
Those games continue on Friday, while the likes of Zhao Xintong and Mark Williams will also reenter the fray on day seven.
Zhao takes on Lei Peifan while Williams meets Hossein Vafaei in the second round.
For the full 2025 World Snooker Championship draw, results, and schedule, click here.
Featured photo credit: WST
The opening round has been bookended by the two genuine shocks of round one. Myself, DC, Phil Yates and Adrian Humphries are among those to exit in round one in terms of tipping the outright champion!
It was the worst match of a generally fabulous opening that witnessed the century record smashed by 11, with 55 being made in all.
Six world champions remain. Pang, Si and Woollaston are the only players left never to have won a ranking title.
Vafeai’s only win over Williams in seven attempts is a Shootout final. I favour the Iranian as he’s scoring heavily and Williams eyesight issues could return to plague him.
Selby’s exit leaves that quarter heavily weighted in favour of O’Sullivan.
The Day/Brecel match was contest where the sublime and ridiculous occurred frequently. Day’s 16th Crucible appearance sees him bow at the first hurdle for the 11th time.
Australia are the only country to bow out in round one. Seven nationalities remain.