2010 World Snooker Championship

The 2010 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2010 Betfred.com World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 17 April and 3 May 2010 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. The final ranking event of the 2009–10 snooker season, it was the 34th year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible. The event was organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association and had a total prize fund of £1,111,000, with £250,000 going to the winner of the event. The tournament was sponsored by sports betting company Betfred.

John Higgins was the defending champion, but lost in the second round 11–13 to Steve Davis. Neil Robertson won the event after a 18–13 win over Graeme Dott in the final. In winning the event, Robertson was the second player from outside of the British Isles to win the event in the modern era of snooker, and the first Australian to win the event since the disputed 1952 World Snooker Championship which contained only Australian and New Zealand players. There were 60 century breaks made during the event, the highest being a 146 made by both Dott and Mark Allen.

Background

The inaugural 1927 World Snooker Championship, then known as the Professional Championship of Snooker, took place at various venues in England between November 1926 and May 1927. Joe Davis won the final—held at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham from 9 to 12 May 1927—and went on to win the tournament 15 consecutive times before retiring undefeated after the 1946 edition (no tournaments were held from 1941 to 1945 because of World War II). The tournament went into abeyance after only two players contested the 1952 edition, due to a dispute between the Professional Billiards Players' Association (PBPA) and the Billiards Association and Control Council (BACC). The PBPA established an alternative tournament, the World Professional Championship, of which the six editions held between 1952 and 1957 are retroactively regarded as legitimate continuations of the World Snooker Championship. However, due to waning public interest in snooker during the era, that tournament was also discontinued, and the world title was uncontested between 1958 and 1963.

Then-professional player Rex Williams was instrumental in reviving the World Snooker Championship on a challenge basis in 1964. John Pulman, winner of the 1957 World Professional Championship, defended the world title across seven challenge matches between 1964 and 1968. The World Snooker Championship reverted to an annual knockout tournament for the 1969 edition, marking the beginning of the championship's "modern era". The 1977 edition was the first staged at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, where it has remained since. The most successful players in the modern era was Stephen Hendry, having won the title seven times. Hendry was also the tournament's youngest winner, having captured his first title at the 1990 event, aged . Ray Reardon became the oldest winner when he secured his sixth title at the 1978 event, aged .

The 2010 event was organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. John Higgins was the defending champion, having defeated Shaun Murphy 18–9 in the previous year's final. The event was sponsored by sports betting company Betfred, who extended their sponsorship of the event for a further four years.

Format The 2010 World Snooker Championship took place from 17 April to 3 May 2010 in Sheffield, England. The tournament was the last of six ranking events in the 2009–10 snooker season on the World Snooker Tour. It featured a 32-player main draw that was held at the Crucible Theatre, as well as a qualifying draw that was played at the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield from 26 February to 9 March. This was the 34th consecutive year that the tournament had been staged at the Crucible. The main stages of the event were broadcast by the BBC in the United Kingdom.

The top 16 players in the latest world rankings automatically qualified for the main draw as seeded players. Higgins was seeded first overall as the defending champion, and the remaining 15 seeds were allocated based on the latest world rankings. The number of frames required to win a match increased throughout the tournament. The first round consisted of best-of-19-frames matches, with the final match being played over a maximum of 35 frames. All 16 non-seeded spots in the main draw were filled with players from the qualifying rounds. The draw for the televised stage of the World Championship was made on 11 March 2010.

Prize fund The breakdown of prize money for the event is shown below:

Winner: £250,000 Runner-up: £125,000 Semi-final: £52,000 Quarter-final: £24,050 Last 16: £16,000 Last 32: £12,000 Last 48: £8,200 Last 64: £4,600

Stage one highest break: £1,000 Stage two highest break: £10,000 Stage one maximum break: £5,000 Stage two maximum break: £147,000 Total: £1,111,000

Summary First round The first round was played between 17 and 22 April as the best of 19 held over two . The defending champion, John Higgins, trailed Barry Hawkins 45 at the end of the first session, but he went on to secure his progress into the second round with of 63, 121, 67 and 114 for a 106 victory. "I was a total bag of nerves early on. I knew it was going to happen because that's how I felt on the two previous occasions I've come back here as the champion," Higgins said afterwards. There were two debutants at the Crucible on this edition: Tom Ford and Zhang Anda. Ford faced Mark Allen, who took the first seven frames before Ford replied with a 107 break. Allen then almost completed a maximum break in the ninth frame: he fifteen with fifteen , but he lost position on the and, even though he potted it, he then missed the following to end the on 122. Allen, who would have earned £157,000 for the 147, went on to secure a 104 win. An 18-year-old Zhang met Stephen Hendry, who built a 40 lead at the start of the match. Hendry's lead was halved at 75 and then Zhang won four on the trot to go within one of victory at 97. Zhang had a chance to claim victory, but he missed a black off when he was on a 25 break and Hendry won two consecutive frames to force a , which he won. "At 97 I was preparing my retirement speech," Hendry commented. Mark Selby, winner of the 2010 Masters during the season, built a one-frame lead against Ken Doherty with breaks of 103 and 106. He then went on to win 104, recording an 81 break in the last frame as part of a failed maximum attempt. Selby said he was "chuffed to bits" after progressing into the second round with his defeat of Doherty, world champion in 1997.

Four of the sixteen seeded players lost their first-round matches: Marco Fu, Mark King, Peter Ebdon and Ryan Day. Martin Gould trailed Fu 68 despite recording two centuries, but he forced a decider and took it with a 90 break. King met six-time world champion Steve Davis, who was 52 years old and was playing at the Crucible for a record-extending 30th time. Steve Davis won four frames in a row to go 86 ahead and clinched victory in the decider. He became the oldest player since Eddie Charlton in 1989 to win a match in the final stage of the World Championship. "What a feeling. The last frame was torture. It was good to actually win a match here at the Crucible after a few dismal performances here over the past few years, and hold myself together," Steve Davis said. Ebdon, the 2002 champion, faced Graeme Dott, who had defeated him in the 2006 final. Dott won 105, leaving Ebdon out of the top 16 for the following season for the first time since 1994. Day, who had made it to the quarter-finals both in 2008 and 2009, faced Mark Davis. Mark Davis ended the first session ahead at 54 and won the second by the same score to seal a 108 victory. "I have to evaluate on a poor season. There weren't that many events and I didn't really get into any rhythm," Day said.

Joe Perry won over Michael Holt 104. Mark Williams, world champion both in 2000 and 2003 and winner of the 2010 China Open during the season, beat Marcus Campbell 105. "It was a struggle. I'm over the moon with the result but not the performance. The first round is a twitchy one," Williams admitted after the win. Ali Carter, a runner-up in 2008, defeated Jamie Cope 109. "I'm going to see a sports psychologist in the summer. I think it's the only thing that's going to make any difference," Cope said afterwards. Ronnie O'Sullivan made century breaks of 100 and 108 in consecutive frames to lead Liang Wenbo 72 and 93, only one away from victory, but Liang compiled breaks of 61, 103 and 127 to win four frames on the trot and reduce the deficit. O'Sullivan then claimed victory with a 107 result aided by a 73 break.

Neil Robertson, winner of the 2009 Grand Prix during the season, built a 51 lead against Fergal O'Brien and got a to conclude the first session 63 ahead. Robertson went on to win 105. The match featured a frame that lasted 69 minutes, with the players taking 20 minutes to pot the yellow when only the remained on the table. "I felt like I was trying to get chewing gum off a carpet. [Fergal O'Brien]'s very measured, he's got tons of experience and he's not the kind of player to hand you chances on a plate. It wasn't slow play. The was really good," Robertson said. Before the tournament began, Ding Junhui was deemed by Clive Everton, writing for The Guardian, as an "authentic title contender", after he had played three ranking finals during the season and won the 2009 UK Championship. Ding went 81 in front of Stuart Pettman with breaks of 77, 88, 120 and 95. Ding took two more frames to win 101. The 2005 world champion, Shaun Murphy, built a 81 lead against Gerard Greene. Greene reduced the deficit from 29 to 79, making breaks of 67, 65 and 92 in the process. In the fourteenth frame, when only the and black balls were left on the table, Murphy managed to lay , get 30 and take the frame on the pink. Murphy won 107. Stephen Lee constructed a 127 break in the first session of his match against Stephen Maguire, but he ended it 36 behind. Maguire, world number two and a semi-finalist at the Crucible in 2007, secured victory with a 104 result. "I think I've under-achieved in my career so far, but I'm trying different things to try to win more tournaments," Maguire stated.

Second round