World Snooker Championship 2021 Day Nine preview and order of play: Trump resumes title quest

Jamie Shaw in World Snooker Championship 24 April 2021

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Robertson, Williams and Wilson seal Quarter-Final places at the World Snooker Championship

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Judd Trump leads David Gilbert to close in on World Championship quarter-finals

Judd Trump gets his Crucible campaign under way (Photo by George Wood/PA Images)

The Second Round action continues at The Crucible on Sunday as the 2021 World Snooker Championship continues to gather pace.

Four players have already booked their place in the Quarter-Finals of the sport’s blue riband event in Sheffield and a host of star names will look to go some way towards joining them.

World number one Judd Trump resumes his quest for a second world title triumph in the space of three years when he takes on world number 15 David Gilbert.

Trump has five ranking titles to his name this season but would surely trade them all for a second Crucible crown as he looks to affirm his position as the sport’s dominant force.

Trump began with a comfortable 10-4 victory over Liam Highfield in Round One but now faces a much tougher test against a player with proven calibre at The Crucible.

Gilbert famously reached the Semi-Finals in 2019 – the year Trump lifted the title – going down 17-16 to John Higgins in a classic contest which ended in tears for the Tamworth ace.

Gilbert also coasted through his opener 10-4 against qualifier Chris Wakelin and will look to get off to a strong start against the tournament favourite in the first of three unmissable sessions.

Two qualifiers collide for the right to take on Anthony McGill in the Last Eight as 2015 World Champion Stuart Bingham faces a resurgent Jamie Jones.

Bingham and Jones were the only two qualifiers to make it through the opening round and progressed in contrasting fashion.

Bingham held his nerve to edge out 2016 finalist Ding Junhui in a last-frame decider, while Jones swept aside Stephen Maguire 10-4.

Jones is bidding to replicate his run to the Quarter-Finals on debut here in 2021, while Bingham has not been beyond this stage of the competition since he went all the way to glory six years ago.

The afternoon session sees two matches resume for their second sessions, with two former World Champions and two Masters winners in action.

Three-time World Champion Mark Selby opened up a healthy 6-2 lead over Mark Allen at the close of play in their opening session on Saturday.

Selby took the opening two frames with high breaks of 68 and 96 before Allen hit back to parity with a top break of 67.

Selby, though, dominated from there on in with a run of four consecutive frames with the aid of breaks of 61, 134 and 63 to move four clear overnight.

Shaun Murphy, meanwhile, set a new tournament high break target of 144 on his way to establishing a 6-2 lead over Masters Champion Yan Bingtao.

Murphy, the 2005 World Champion, set his stall out in style with a break of 109 in the opening frame, and after doubling his lead, powered in a magnificent clearance of 144 to move in line for the £15,000 high break prize.

Yan got off the mark in frame four thanks to a break of 88, but only for Murphy to reel off three frames in a row to move 6-1 ahead.

The Chinese ace, however, ended the session strongly by compiling a break of 101 to reduce the deficit to four overnight.

The action gets under way from 10am BST, with first and second sessions consisting of a maximum of eight frames each.

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