On a busty day of second-round action at the 2026 Halo World Snooker Championship, seven-time champion of the world, Ronnie O'Sullivan, emphasised the gulf in class between him and the 'Wizard of Wishaw', John Higgins, by opening up a four-frame lead, leading 6-2 before tomorrow's second session. O'Sullivan was extremely impressive, after the pair shared the opening two frames, O'Sullivan took control by winning the next three, including a break of 137, before Higgins took the sixth, and O'Sullivan brought proceedings to a close by securing the next two to secure a comfortable lead in a match which looks destined not to go to a third session. While O'Sullivan was magnificent, Higgins took out of sorts all evening, and, quite frankly, didn't seem to even deserve being in the same room as O'Sullivan. The Wizard is surely already packing his bags for the long journey back to Scotland.
Another member of the Class of 92 heading out from the Crucible is Mark Williams, who never recovered from a really poor second session, in losing 13-9 to the impressive Barry Hawkins, who looks set to enjoy another good run at the Crucible, as he did for a spell from 2013-2019. Leading 10-6 from Friday evening's session, both players shared six frames, ensuring that Hawkins got over the line and into a quarter-final where he will now face Northern Ireland's Mark Allen.
Allen, who had found himself 9-7 in front ahead of the morning's concluding session against 2024 champion Kyren Wilson, took four of the first six frames to be played to ensure that his name would once again feature in the last eight of a tournament which, considering his talent and high standards, he has faired pretty poorly in over recent years.
Both Chris Wakelin and Neil Robertson, as well as Hossein Vafaei and Judd Trump will begin their second sessions on Sunday level-pegging at 4-4, while, in the massive all-Chinese affair, defending champion Zhao Xintong leads his compatriot Ding Junhui 9-7. After the first session ended all square, Xintong took command by taking five of the eight frames, including a break of 115 in the 14th frame, while in taking two of the last three frames, Ding will be relived to be only 7-9 behind ahead of their concluding session. Judd Trump will also be slightly relived to have got out of his opening session all square, after Vafaei had won three frames on the bounce following the mid-session interval at which Trump had led 3-1.
Meanwhile, four-time champion Mark Selby commences his second round match with the talented Chinese youngster Wu Hize, the match beginning at 10am.
ORDER OF PLAY - SUNDAY 26th APRIL 2026
10AM
Zhao Xintong (9) v (7) Ding Junhui
Mark Selby v Wu Hize
2.30PM
Chris Wakelin (4) v (4) Neil Robertson
Hossein Vafaei (4) v (4) Judd Trump
7PM
John Higgins (2) v (6) Ronnie O'Sullivan
Mark Selby v Wu Hize
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