World Snooker Championship: Neil Robertson hits three centuries to move within one win of Crucible spot – Eurosport

Neil Robertson completed a 10-2 drubbing of world No. 70 Zak Surety to move within one win of booking his spot in the last-32 draw for the World Championship.

Resuming 7-2 clear from the afternoon session at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield on Monday, the 2010 Crucible winner finished off matters with closing breaks of 90 and 117 after earlier rolling in 103, 134 and three more breaks over 50.

The Australian icon – down at 26 in the latest provisional world rankings – will face Jamie Jones in the final qualifying round on Wednesday after the Welshman sealed his progress with a 10-5 win over 2023 world seniors finalist Alfie Burden by winning six of the closing seven frames from 4-4.

Former world semi-finalist David Gilbert completed a 10-4 win over David Lilley, but there will be no Crucible return for the evergreen duo of Marco Fu and Graeme Dott next week.

Noppon recorded the tournament’s 20th all-time 147 in the first frame of the second session as he went on to win 10-5 and reach the final qualifying round.

It was the 31-year-old’s 147th career century and the 202nd maximum break in professional snooker.

Elsewhere, last year’s semi-finalist Si Jiahui produced a great escape act in a 10-9 win over Ben Mertens as he recovered from trailing 9-8 and 69-0 in the 18th frame to get the snooker he needed before pinching the frame by a point.

Si claimed a third straight frame by dominating the decider to set up a meeting with Wu Yize on Wednesday.

• Jamie Jones 10-5 Alfie Burden
• Neil Robertson 10-2 Zak Surety
• Si Jiahui 10-9 Ben Mertens
• David Gilbert 10-4 David Lilley
• Ryan Day 10-6 John Astley
• Wu Yize 10-8 Tian Pengfei
• Xiao Guodong 10-2 Sanderson Lam
• Joe Perry 6-10 Scott Donaldson
• Jackson Page 10-6 Graeme Dott
• Noppon Saengkham 10-5 Andy Hicks
• Cao Yupeng 10-4 Ma Hailong
• Jiang Jun 10-8 Sam Craigie
• Matthew Selt 10-4 Aaron Hill
• Pang Junxu 10-7 Oliver Brown
• Hossein Vafaei 10-4 Marco Fu
• Robbie Williams 10-5 Anthony Hamilton

Former world champion Neil Robertson is on the cusp of returning to the Crucible as he finished his first session against Zak Surety 7-2 up in World Championship qualifying.

Robertson, triumphant at the Crucible in 2010, has struggled for form this season and has found himself outside of the top 16.

That forced the Australian to go through qualifying sitting down in 36th in the one-year ranking.

In his first match of qualifying he faces Surety and after the first session has roared into a 7-2 lead.

Robertson took the first six frames in a row including a ton before Surety could get onto the board. However Robertson responded with a mammoth break of 134 to move to seven frames whilst Surety took the final one of the session.

The winner of this game will face either Jamie Jones or Alfie Burden in the final round of qualifying.

Elsewhere David Gilbert, a former World Championship semi-finalist, is also in control of his game against David Lilley 7-2. Like Robertson Gilbert also hit two centuries.

Another former Crucible semi-finalist, Si Jiahui is having a far tighter time of it with his game against Ben Mertens currently standing at 5-4 in his favour.

The pair constantly exchanged frames, with Si winning the first two before Mertens levelled up and then winning one each, including a 124 for Mertens.

But Si then won two in a row to ensure he would take the first session lead but Mertens won the final frame to make sure that that lead would just be one.

In the upcoming afternoon session, live on Eurosport and discovery+, will see Hossein Vafaei resume 6-3 up against Marco Fu amongst others.