Watch: Disastrous luck! - Williams' trip to snooker Shenzhen Open cut short

After a painful defeat in the English Open final at the last tournament, Mark Williams surely came to the snooker Shenzhen Open with a bit of a score to settle. His 1st round opponent Fan Zhengyi had other ideas despite his lowly ranking position of 52nd.

The match began well for the Welsh favourite, but any confidence thanks to an opening frame win with a break of 68 quickly evaporated. Zhengyi had planned to show up in front of his home crowd, and was unphased by Williams' status as the reigning champion here, although in 2025 the tournament was under the Xi'An Grand Prix name.

The next three frames in a row went the way of the Chinese challenger, with breaks of 80, 60 and 50 to look back on. In a best of 9 -match a 1-3 lead is already significant, and after the players traded the next two frames Fan was already on match frame, with three chances to complete the upset.

The experienced Welshman weathered the storm for the first two, but the decider at 4-4 proved a step too far. The frame went to pink and black ball, and with a decent shot on a relatively routine long pink, Fan would take victory if he could play onto the black.

However disaster struck, as the pot simply missed - his position on the black would have been perfect. With a 47-44 lead, Williams now had his chance to take a 2nd round spot with just the pink. The Welshman managed to sink the difficult long pink that was languishing on the top cushion, but incredibly the white ball rolled back his way straight into the opposite corner pocket!

Zhengyi managed to gather himself at the second time of asking, finishing Williams off. Mark had high hopes for this tournament after picking up form at the English Open, but now thanks to some incredible drama and luck he'll be on a flight home bitterly disappointed.

You can watch the incredible finish to the decider via the video below starting from around the 9-minute mark.





The Shenzhen Open continues today and tomorrow on Tuesday with more 1st round matches.

Below are results from the 1st round of the Shenzhen Open.







Source: WST