World Snooker Championship 2023

The three main highlights of the draw other than Ronnie v Pang for me are as follows:

Ding v Vafaei should be a compelling encounter full of attacking snooker.

Judd Trump has the nightmare tie that all the seeds wanted to avoid in Anthony McGill.

Lisowski v Saengkham is a potential classic and I would suggest could be the tie of the round.

One more sleep until my 17 day highlight of the sporting year begins .

Finding it impossible to predict a winner this year. So many potential candidates.

I can't even decide who I actually WANT to win either .
But that's just me getting very old and equally indecisive .

Nah I'm with you snooks given its the longest format of the snookering year after most of these shorter formats
Personally would love to see Ronnie break the record of most championships if he can block out all his demons etc
Otherwise there's probably 3-4 contenders it'll be interesting to see how the draw plans out

Ronnie says he has elbow trouble, but is he just playing mind games ? I hope he makes it 8 titles, he is already the GOAT with world titles in 3 different decades but this would be the icing on the cake. If not Ronnie I hope Jack Lisowski finally makes the breakthrough.

Ronnie through, but Pang put up some fight after falling 5-0 down.

Day One.

Result:
Ronnie O'Sullivan (1) bt Pang Junxu 10-7

Overnight scores:
Stuart Bingham (14) 6-3 David Gilbert
Luca Brecel (9) 6-3 Ricky Walden
Neil Robertson (6) 6-3 Wu Yize
Ali Carter (11) 4-5 Jak Jones

After much internal debate and indecision my sneaky tournament bet for the title this year: Neil Robertson.

The reason?
Well he has had a run of seasons racking up titles and then flopping at The Crucible.
This time he has had a relatively quiet season and I suspect may hit peak form at just the right time and do the reverse of previous campaigns. We'll see.

2 146's in a session

just hope he doesnt burn out

146 breaks are incredibly rare anyway but to see two in three frames is remarkable.

If nobody beats 146 Robertson will have to share the £15k high break prize with Ryan Day due to the ruling that says breaks in the qualifying stage are also taken into account. Ryan Day made a 146 in his final qualifying match.

There is no separate prize for each stage.

First surprise exit of the tournament is the number eleven seed Ali Carter after being beaten 10-6 by a very impressive and mature performance from Welshman Jak Jones.

That is a really notable victory against one of the seasons form players. Well done.
The bad news for him is that he faces Neil Robertson in round two.
Gulp .

Meanwhile...........

Brecel v Walden is going to the wire.
It's 9-9 .