World Snooker Championship 2011

Apr 15, 2011
Steve Boxall

World Snooker Championship 2011, Crucible Theatre - underclassrising.net

This year's World Snooker Championship takes place as usual at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield starting on April 16th and ending on Monday May 2nd.

Crucible Theatre, Sheffield

The Crucible Theatre opened in 1971 and the World Snooker Championships have been played there annually since 1977, including in 2008 and 2009 when the theatre was going through a major refurbishment. It has a capacity of 980 and the audience sits on three sides of the auditorium. The first winner of the World Championship at the Crucible was John Spencer who defeated Cliff Thorburn 25-21 in the final. The BBC showed just the semi finals and final, a huge difference from the television coverage that they will show over the next two weeks.

How the World Championship Can Be Won.

The World Snooker Championship is fought out by 32 players, the world’s top 16 players and 16 qualifiers. In the first round all the seeded players will be drawn against a qualifier and the match will be decided over 19 frames. In the second round and quarter finals they play the best of 25 frames, while the semi final is played over 33 frames. The final is held on May 1st and 2nd and is played over 35 frames.

First Round Draw

The numbers next to a player signify their World Championship Seeding for this year’s event.

Neil Robertson (1) v Judd Trump
Marcu Fu (16) v Martin Gould
Graeme Dott (9) v Mark King
Ali Carter (8) v Dave Harold
Ding Junhui (5) v Jamie Burnett
Peter Ebdon (12) v Stuart Bingham
Stephen Hendry (13) v Joe Perry
Mark Selby (4) v Jimmy Robertson
Mark Williams (3) v Ryan Day
Jamie Cope (14) v Andrew Pagett
Mark Allen (11) v Matthew Stevens
Stephen Maguire (6) v Barry Hawkins
Shaun Murphy (7) v Marcus Campbell
Ronnie O’Sullivan (10) v Dominic Dale
Ricky Walden (15) v Rory McLeod
John Higgins (2) v Stephen Lee

There are two players playing at the Crucible for the first time, they are Andrew Pagett and Jimmy Robertson.

Neil Robertson

Neil Robertson is the current reigning World Champion, but comes into this year’s tournament not in the best of form. In the last three World Ranking events he has failed to get past the second round. Currently the World number 5.

Ronnie O’Sullivan

From being the world’s best snooker player he has hit an extraordinary bad patch of form. In the last four tournaments he has played in, he has gone out in the first round of each one. Currently World number 10, he now has a lot to prove even though he is a three-time winner of this event.