Snooker English Open: Robertson horror-show ends in 1st round exit to #117 in the world

The snooker season continues at a frantic pace, as less than 12 hours since Jak Jones was celebrating his title at the British Open, the English Open is already underway with its 1st round matches.

The 1st round of the tournament brought a big upset, with Neil Robertson falling to China's Luo Zetao in a best of 7 bout. The Chinese challenger is ranked just 117th in the world, while the Aussie sat in 4th place in the rankings going into the tournament.

Despite being 25, Zetao has only appeared on the tour previously in the 2018/2019 season, where he didn't make it past the qualifiers a single time. Now with a two-year ticket, he's been knocked out in all the qualifiers so far apart from the Championship league, where he reached the round robin.

The match was a cagey affair to begin with, with neither player managing to get in the flow or build a break. Robertson ended up edging the first frame out, but not even a big fluke could stop Zetao from equalising.

Tensions began to rise as Zetao took frame 3, and the 4th frame was truly one to forget. Both players had loads of chances to take control and make a break but failed. Eventually experience prevailed, and Robertson managed to equalize.

The Chinese challenger showed some better form in frame 5, making the first century of the match to get onto match frame. Robertson equalized to force a decider, where Zetao fumbled an easy chance to close on a routine black to give the Australian a big chance to mount a comeback from 0-38 down.

However, his break didn't even bring him level, with some limp safety exchanges to follow. The Aussie managed to win out eventually, but his clearance was cut short by the jaws on the final yellow. Zetao controlled his nerves and cleared out with some nice shots to complete the upset and the biggest win of his career to date.

Robertson hasn't gone further than the quarter-finals this year, and this defeat will sting even more. After the match the Aussie blamed "equipment issues" as the main culprit for his poor form, with this defeat being "the last straw" for his current setup.

Zetao will face the winner of Jimmy Robertson / Gong Chenzi in the 2nd round on Wednesday, while the 1st round of the English Open concludes tomorrow.

You can find the English Open's 1st round results so far below.







Source: [https://www.tntsports.co.uk/snooker/betvictor-english-open/2026/robertson-zetao-wilson-baranowski_lci50029291/liveevent.shtml]TNT Sports[/url]