Chinese outsider Liang Wenbo marked his snooker World Championship debut with a shock 10-5 win over 1997 champion Ken Doherty in the first round at the Crucible Theatre on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, fellow Chinese debutant Liu Chuang was more than holding his own after rallying from 3-1 down to be just 5-4 behind against two-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan.
Doherty was not the only former world champion to fall at the first hurdle on Wednesday, with Graeme Dott, the 2006 winner, beaten 10-7 by Joe Perry.
PHOTO: AP
That meant three men to have won snooker’s most prestigious prize had exited the tournament in the space of two days after six-time champion Steve Davis was beaten by Stuart Bingham on Tuesday. But Shaun Murphy, Crucible champion the year before Dott, eased through to the last 16 with a 10-3 win over fellow Englishman Dave Harold.
Liang, 21, who had to win four qualifying matches just to get to this stage, showed few nerves as he raced into a 7-2 lead at the end of the first session.
Although Doherty showed some of his customary resilience to prevent a total rout, the Irishman could not stop Liang joining Ding Junhui, China’s leading player, in the second round, after he edged out Hong Kong’s Marco Fu 10-9 on Tuesday.
“It’s the best win of my career,” an elated Liang said.
Defeat meant Doherty dropped out of the top 16 in the world rankings for the first time in 15 years and will have to qualify for the televised stage of tournaments next season.
O’Sullivan saw his campaign for a third world title start well as he went 3-0 in front, before Liu pulled a frame back with a break of 92. And the teenager, who lost 5-1 to O’Sullivan in last season’s China Open, leveled at 3-3 after getting the man nicknamed “Rocket” for his aggressive style into two awkward snookers.
Liu, who is based near the Crucible at Sheffield’s World Snooker Academy, lost a tight seventh frame, but the 17-year-old leveled again with a 55 break.
He led 40-13 in the final frame of the day before missing a black, which gave O’Sullivan the chance to grab a slender lead.
Earlier, Dott lost his 16th consecutive match. Diagnosed with depression, the Scot came close to withdrawing from this tournament before it started.
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