Robertson and Vafaei Reach Last 16; Second Round Leads for Murphy and Allen

Hossein Vafaei and Neil Robertson were the last players to reach the last sixteen of the 2026 Halo World Snooker Championship, with fifteen of the sixteen top seeds having navigated through what appeared to be rather tricky and difficult matches.

Robertson, who took a narrow 5-4 lead going into Thursday evening's concluding session, impressed as he overcame a resilient challenge from Pang Junxu, winning five of the evening's seven frames, concluding with a century break, although it was Pang who had secured the highest break of the match, scoring a 122 in the final frame of the previous evening's opening session. Robertson now faces Scottish Open champion Chris Wakelin, and will be looking for revenge since Wakelin had knocked Robertson out at the first round of last year's World Championship, coming out as a 10-8 victor.

Iranian Vafaei, who has had far more pressing matters than snooker on his mind in recent times, looked very impressive as he overcame the challenge of 2023 semi-finalist Si Jiahui, coming from 1-3 down to win nine successive frames and defeat Jiahui 10-3, during which he made his highest break so far of the tournament of 105 and he now awaits a second round meeting with 2019 champion Judd Trump.

While the first round drew to a close, the second round got under way on Thursday afternoon, with 2005 champion Shaun Murphy looking in particularly fine form in establishing a 5-0 lead, which included a break of 103, before his opponent, Xiao Guodong, finally got into the match by claiming the next two frames, before Murphy established an overnight four-frame lead at 6-2.

With on-going problems with his cue and his tip seemingly getting the better of him in the first part of his opening session against Northern Ireland's Mark Allen, it looked at once stage as if Kyren Wilson might even struggle to get his name on the scoreboard, with Allen not really having to do very much in establishing a 5-0 lead, however Wilson soon got into gear and took the last three frames in succession to leave the Englishman in far better spirits than he had been during the mid-session interval.

ORDER OF PLAY - 2nd ROUND

FRIDAY 24th APRIL 2026

10AM

Xiao Guodong (2) v (6) Shaun Murphy

Barry Hawkins v Mark J. Williams

2.30PM

Zhao Xintong v Ding Junhui

Kyren Wilson (3) v (5) Mark Allen

7PM

Xiao Guodong v Shaun Murphy - Play to Finish

Barry Hawkins v Mark J. Williams