2016 World Championship (Day 9) - Hawkins keeps Rocket down

It's been a rather interesting day here at the Crucible as some of the favourite players have struggled to keep up with their opponents while some of the TOP 16 players have been getting their a**es kicked by the players who had to qualify for this event, just to spice things up a few notches.

As many of you are already aware, Ronnie O'Sullivan and Barry Hawkins got the chance to somehow re-enact the 2013 World Championship Final, with the only difference that after two sessions, Hawkins is the one in control, at 9-7 up (after he previously ended the first session 5-3 in front).

The session continued on the same note as the first one, the match itself being a tremendous display of high-quality snooker with Hawkins taking the 9th frame on the black and O'Sullivan typically responding with a great 118 clearance to restore the 2-frame gap.

The players shared frames, O'Sullivan using top breaks of 82, 89 and 48, while his opponent responded with runs of 74, 41, 65 and 41 to end the session at 9-7 up. However, this match is long from being over.

Ding Junhui, who had to qualify for the 2016 Betfred World Championship edition got the best of his opponent Judd Trump, as he ended their first session at 6-2 up and maintained his composure in order to close the second one at 10-6 up.

Despite Trump's ironic humour of tweeting just after the end of the first session "4 frame start for Wenbo and now ding, Gotta give these players a chance." he didn't manage to regain much of the lost territory after the second one.


Mark Allen is currently in a bit of a bother, as the 2015 Shanghai Masters champion, Kyren Wilson got on a very strong start and ended the first session in full control of the match at 7-1 up thanks to solid contributions of 50, 55, 93 and 103.

However, when the lads returned for their second snooker meeting, Allen fought back by practically firing in breaks of 122, 103, 60 and 66 to win no less than 4 frames on a row! Amazing effort!

But Wilson smelt danger, so he was sure to grab the next four frames (the last two of them being won on the black) in order to close the session at 11-5 up.

John Higgins held an overnight advantage of 5-3 against Ricky Walden, advantage which he turned into 10-6 after their second session.

"The Wizard of Wishaw" took the first two frames of the session with a top break of 90, but the following two were cashed by his opponent who was maintaining the two-frame gap.

After the interval, Higgins press the repeat button and won two more frames, but this time Walden only managed to respond by taking the next one, the last of the session entering into the Scotsman's pocket for a 10-6 scoreline.

All the aforementioned matched will find their conclusion this Monday, so here's Day 10 of the World Championship match schedule:

1pm
Judd Trump v Ding Junhui
Mark Allen v Kyren Wilson

7pm
Ricky Walden v John Higgins
Barry Hawkins v Ronnie O'Sullivan