An incredible first day at the 2026 Northern Ireland Open saw every top 16 player in action suffer a first-round defeat.
Following what felt like a long two-week gap on the calendar, there was plenty of excitement ahead of the 2026/27 season’s seventh ranking event.
But most of the marquee names who entered the fray on Sunday were immediately sent packing from the competition.
Mark Selby and Neil Robertson had both begun the tournament with aspirations of becoming the first player to complete the career Home Nations Series set.
Both already boasted the English, Scottish, and Welsh Open titles and need just the Alex Higgins Trophy to finish off their collection.
But China Open champion Selby, who has been one of the outstanding players of the current term, suffered a shock 4-2 reverse to Louis Heathcote.
Robertson could only muster a single frame as he bowed out in a 4-1 loss to Ricky Walden.
Shaun Murphy and Xiao Guodong similarly stumbled at the initial hurdle, bowing out in respective defeats to Liam Davies and Sam Craigie.
There was also an unexpected 4-0 drubbing for recent English Open champion Ali Carter at the hands of Xu Si.
Gary Wilson, three-times a winner on the Home Nations Series of events in the last few years, put up a better fight but also lost 4-3 to Mateusz Baranowski.
There was joy at least for top seed and defending champion Jack Lisowski, however.
The 35 year-old, who secured a memorable and long-overdue maiden ranking title with his 9-8 victory over Judd Trump in last year’s final, beat Huang Jiaho 4-1.
Lisowski has endured a difficult start to the 2026/27 campaign and could do with another deep run in Belfast to strengthen his ranking status.
There was disappointment, meanwhile, for Aaron Hill, who as a Cork native would effectively consider the Northern Ireland Open as his home event.
The 24 year-old lost 4-2 to Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, while there were victories elsewhere for both Matthew Selt and Joe O’Connor.
Anthony McGill beat Stephen Maguire 4-1 in an all-Scottish showdown, while in an all-Chinese affair, young Wang Xinbo got the better of Si Jiahui.
The action at the Waterfront Hall continues on Monday with several other matches from the round of 64 taking place.
Record four-time Northern Ireland Open champion Judd Trump entertains Martin O’Donnell while Ronnie O’Sullivan is set to face Cheung Ka Wai.
John Higgins, Barry Hawkins, and Kyren Wilson are also to feature on the second day schedule.
In addition to the Alex Higgins Trophy, the players are competing for a top prize worth £100,000 with the final scheduled for Sunday in Belfast.
The updated draw is available at snooker.org.
Featured photo credit: WST
Ali Carter and Xu Si just arrived back from Hangzhou where they were both team-mates in the ‘Red Panda Team’ of the Chinese Billiards League (along with Chris Wakelin and Liam Davies). An underlying motivation in yesterday’s match? But Carter’s loss also affects his chances of landing the series bonus.
Perhaps the results so far at the NI Open could be seen by anyone so inclined as an argument in favor of a flat draw, because so many of the higher seeds have already lost, and it’s still only the 1st round — so they can hardly be said to have justified their high seeding.
Interesting that you have a foto of Ricky Walden, who beat Neil Robertson — according to snooker dot org (a very handy/useful website), this was the 5th consecutive time Walden beat Robertson, starting with the 2nd round of the same tournament in 2021 — during those 5 encounters, the frame count is 20 – 8 in favor of Walden.