Snooker: World Championship 2nd round set - Robertson makes it a record 15/16 seeded players through

The 1st round of the Snooker World Championship has been entertaining, if not full of surprises. A record-equalling 15 out of the 16 players continuing in the tournament are seeded, and only Hossein Vafaei's 9 frame streak heroics against Si Jiahui prevented a full monty.

The final favourite to hold on to his status in the 1st round was Australia's Neil Robertson, who defeated China's Pang Junxu 10-6 to advance. The Crucible magic usually gives us far more surprises, as this many seeded players have continued to the second round on only two previous occasions, in 1983 and 1993.

All 16 players have therefore never defended their honour, and Robertson didn't sprint out of the blocks either. The 2010 World Champion had his struggles in the first session, but managed to take a flimsy 5-4 lead for tonight.

The turning point in the match proved to be frames 13 & 14, where Pang managed to pot just a single red. This momentum took the Aussie's lead up to 9-5, and although he missed the first match ball, he finished Pang off with the 88th Crucible century of his career.

- Hossein Vafaei did me a proper favour by defeating the seeded Si Jiahui, otherwise everyone would have been talking about whether I could become the 16th seeded player to advance and complete the set, Robertson breathed out a sigh of relief after the match.

- The 2nd round matchups look incredible, it's such a star-studded lineup, the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters champion of this season told WST.

The 2nd round at the Snooker World Championship is a palatable delight this season, and one where tasting has already in fact begun. Shaun Murphy took a 6-2 lead against Xiao Guodong, while Mark Allen is 5-3 ahead of Kyren Wilson after the first sessions of both mathces.

The 2nd round matches are best of 25 affairs, meaning that 13 frames are required for a player to earn themselves a trip to the quarter-finals.

Below is the full bracket and 2nd round matchups for the World Snooker Championship 2026:

Shaun Murphy v Xiao Guodong (6-2)
Zhao Xintong v Ding Junhui

Ronnie O'Sullivan v John Higgins
Chris Wakelin v Neil Robertson

Mark Allen v Kyren Wilson (5-3)
Mark Williams v Barry Hawkins

Hossein Vafaei v Judd Trump
Mark Selby v Wu Yize

Below you can find all the results from the 1st round. Check out our Snooker World Championship 2026 -page, where you can find the full schedule for the 2nd round matches along with a lot of other useful information.






Sources: WST BBC