Snooker World Championship: Neil Robertson Secures Round-Two Spot as 15 Seeds Progress

Australian Neil Robertson defeated China's Pang Junxu 10-6 to ensure a Crucible record-equalling 15 seeded players won their first-round matches at the 2026 World Championship. Fourth seed Robertson's four-frame victory meant, for only the third time, all but one of the seeds made it through their matches against the qualifiers. The only player that came through qualifying to still be in the competition is world number 32 Hossein Vafaei of Iran, after he defeated China's Si Jiahui 10-3 earlier on Thursday. The Crucible has staged snooker's biggest event since 1977 and never have all 16 seeds advanced, with 15 reaching round two in 1983 - when Jimmy White lost to Tony Meo - and again 10 years later when Doug Mountjoy defeated Alain Robidoux. "Hossein did me a favour earlier on because all the seeds had won, so the pressure was building and building and who was going to be the one that let everyone down," joked Robertson. Robertson won the 2010 World Championship but failed to qualify in 2024 and lost in the first round last year. On that occasion he was beaten 10-8 by Chris Wakelin and the pair will meet again in the last 16, starting on Saturday and finishing on Monday. Vafaei's reward for beating Si is a tie with world number one Judd Trump. Si, a semi-finalist in 2023, held a 3-1 lead, but 31-year-old Vafaei then won nine frames in a row, thanks to breaks of 81, 61, 60, 105, 53, 78 and 68. Over the last three frames of the first session on Wednesday and the four frames on Thursday, 15th seed Si only scored a combined 64 points as Vafaei impressed. He will play the 2019 winner next and said: "Judd is one of my friends and a nice guy on and off the table. He is the world number one so it's the best match. "I'm getting a lot of support from back home and they would love me to do very good in this tournament. "Si is one of the best players China has so a tough opponent for me, I respect his game and I'm one of his fans, he is such a great player."