World Snooker Championship | Kyren Wilson takes big steps towards world title – 7-1 lead against Jak Jones after first session

Two weeks of snooker had flown by. Two weeks of snooker in which the highest breaks were not made, which was due to the tight pockets that the players had to deal with, but in which there were sometimes intriguing matches.

Kyren Wilson was a finalist for the second time. The number twelve in the world qualified for the final battle via victories over Dominic Dale (10-1), Joe O’Connor (13-6), John Higgins (13-8) and David Gilbert (17-11). He lost his first final in 2020 in an almost empty Crucible arena to Ronnie O’Sullivan.

Jak Jones reached the final of a ranking tournament for the first time in his professional career and did so on the highest stage. The Welshman, number 44 in the world, beat Zhang Anda (10-4), Si Jiahui (13-9) after playing the qualifiers (10-6 win against Jamie Clarke and 10-4 against Zhou Yuelong). ), Judd Trump (13-9) and Stuart Bingham (17-12). This often happened with difficult playing, but that didn’t matter The Silent Assassin not.

Wilson wanted to leave little to the imagination for the Welshman. The first chance TheWarrior immediately resulted in a Century Break. The Brit scored 129 points to make it 1-0.

The second part was a lot more difficult for both players. Wilson could not take the frame in two attempts, but saw that Jones showed mercy and doubling the lead was a fact for the five-time ranking tournament winner.

Moments later, the sixth Welsh finalist in World Cup history again gave his opponent the opportunity to attack a nice table. In two innings Wilson ran out to 3-0 and so the last frame before the Mid Session Interval became extremely important.

Both players continued the line of the first three frames; Jones had opportunities, didn’t take them and then saw Wilson give up. After just over an hour of play it was time for the break and one player had won all the frames and the other could think hard about where it had all gone wrong.

Not much changed in the game in Sheffield after the tea break. Jones kept missing, Wilson showed himself to be the ultimate opportunist. The situation for the Welshman quickly became hopeless. Especially since not only Wilson seemed ruthless, but he himself kept making mistakes. A second Century was there for Wilson: 125 points took him to six to nil.

Eleven points in the seventh frame were also logically not enough. There was no third Century Break; after 90 points for Wilson things went wrong. However, the scoreboard read 7-0 and there was only one frame left to play.

If Wilson were to grab that, this would be a first whitewash session in the first ever session of a World Cup final. For a while that seemed to be the case, but… TheWarrior made a mistake and for the first time Jones actually got some time at the table. It immediately resulted in a frame-winning break and we went into the second session 7-1. It starts tonight at 8:00 PM Dutch time.