World Snooker Championship 2023: Mark Williams romps to victory over Jimmy Robertson with six consecutive frames
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Updated 17/04/2023 at 17:35 GMT
Five years on from beating Jimmy Robertson 10-5 at the World Championship, Mark Williams did it again with an impressive display on Monday afternoon to reach the second round at the Crucible. In 2018, Williams went on to win his third world title and will be hoping history repeats itself over the next two weeks. Luca Brecel will be his opponent on Thursday.
Escape of the championship? Williams brilliantly gets out of snooker
Mark Williams romped his way to a 10-5 victory over Jimmy Robertson by winning every frame in the second part of their first-round match at the World Championship.
Williams trailed Robertson 5-4 going into Monday afternoon’s session, but won six consecutive frames to book a place in round two.
In 2018, Williams also beat Robertson 10-5 in the opening round and went on to win his third Crucible crown.
He will face Luca Brecel in the last 16 on Thursday, after the Belgian beat Ricky Walden on a decider.
Williams set the tone by thumping in a red at the start of the 10th frame to make breaks of 51 and 40 which levelled up the scores.
A break of 69 put the three-time world champion ahead and a 57 in the next meant there was more than one frame separating the two players for the first time in the match.
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Williams pulls two away from Robertson with vital break
Robertson had his chances as Williams attempted a tricky swerve shot in frame 13, but a missed red with the rest when the balls were developed nicely proved costly, so the Welshman led 8-5 going into the mid-session interval.
Sometimes the interval can change the momentum in a snooker match, but Williams continued his fine form to move 9-5 ahead.
Robertson was ahead in what turned out to be the final frame of the match when he made a 34, his highest break of the afternoon.
The world No. 27 had a moment of misfortune when the cue ball went in-off, but Williams initially could not take advantage as he missed a red to the left middle, so the scores were at 42-38 with three reds left on the table.
Robertson missed another long red, leaving everything on, so Williams stepped in and sealed a place in the second round.
Elsewhere, John Higgins put himself in control by taking a 7-2 lead over David Grace, while Hossein Vafaei beat Ding Junhui 10-6.
Vafaei’s post-match comments to Eurosport got the snooker world talking when the Iranian stated he wanted to “shut” Ronnie O’Sullivan’s mouth when the pair meet in round two on Friday.
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