World Championship 2011 - Day 1 - Trump's Triumph

After months of waiting the first day of competition in the Betfred.com World Snooker Championship's at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield has finally started! The fans were treated to a feast of Snooker on the opening day including a shock result in the Neil Robertson v Judd Trump opening match.

Here is a selection of videos from the first day including the full 2.30PM intro from BBC Snooker, interviews with Mark Williams and Lenny Henry and the end of the Trump/Robertson match.

Also thanks for everyone who entered the Scotweb Waistcoat Competition! We had some great entries and the result and the winner of the Tartan backed waistcoat will be announced in the next couple of days.

I will be at the Crucible theatre tomorrow and monday so keep an eye out for more exclusive venue, player photos and videos!

Day 1

Everyone had predicted that this year's Betfred.com World Snooker Championship would be of the highest quality we have ever seen and after today it is easy to see why.

Let's get straight into it with the defending champion Neil Robertson who even against his best efforts he wasn't able to defend his title and the Crucible Curse is as strong as ever as he loses to recent China Open champion, 21 year-old Romford based Judd Trump.

The first session of the match kicked off with some really fast and furious potting from both players. Neil stamped his authority in the match with a quickfire 72 in the first, but Judd hit back in the next two with some amazing pots including a crazy four ball plant to lead the match 2-1. Neil then pulled back to 2-2 going into the interval with a 79 and both players were looking rather relaxed.

The two shot out of the starting blocks with a 122 for Judd and a 127 for Neil to go 3-3 but then Judd looked to be pulling ahead with the help of a 54 break in the 8th to go 5-3. Neil showed us why he was the defending champion though with a break of 100 to finish the first session only 5-4 behind leading into the final session later that night.

When we came back to the boys in the evening Neil had changed into his signature golden waistcoat, would this signal a change of fortune for the Australian? The boys then shared the next four frames with a top run of 90 from Neil to once again tie the match 7-7. Judd then won the next two frames with a top run of 75. Neil pipped back the China Open champion to 9-8 with a great total clearance after Judd made a 53 break but decided to play safe. Judd then showed us why he was able to beat Mark Selby in that final with a classy 83 break in the last frame with many tricky pots to beat the defending champion 10-8.

Neil has had a rollercoaster of a season, he started off great winning the World Open but failed to make any impression in the PTC events and his best performance after that was a UK Championship quarter-final. He will be dissapointed with his season as a whole, especially with his world title defence and i'm sure he will bounce back even stronger next

Judd though has had his best season by a country mile. A while back he might of just been happy to have won the EPTC1 event and qualifying for the Crucible but showing his bottle in the China Open and now beating the defending champion on the opening day of the world championship is a special achievement. He has a winnable match against either Marco Fu or Martin Gould in the next round, could he make the quarter-finals and possibly further?

There was two big shocks in the other matches today, notably in the one between 2005 world champion Shaun Murphy and Scotland's Marcus Campbell. I myself though Marcus would of made a decent go of it in this match after winning EPTC3 earlier in the season and reaching a career high ranking of 32 (provisionally 23rd). But nerves must of gotten the better of the Dumbarton Destroyer as he surprisingly fell 9-0 to Shaun overnight.

Taking nothing away from Shaun though, breaks of 93, 100, 99 and 96 shows that he could be a real contender for this title but Marcus really wasn't at the races today and he will at least want to win a couple frames tomorrow to avoid being the first player whitewashed at the Crucible since John Parrott did it to Eddie Charlton in the 1992 world championship...

Stoke's Dave Harold will be hoping that his home team will fare better in the FA Cup semi-final than he did today as he currently trails the Shanghai Masters champion Ali Carter 8-1. Dave just didn't seem to be finding any form today and his only major contribution was a 92 break in the last frame to avoid the whitewash. Ali though when given the chance looked to be in fine form as he made breaks of 65, 66, 63, 80 and 64 as he built up his lead. What can Dave do going in to tomorrow evenings match?

Welsh players Mark Williams and Ryan Day went on a family caravan holiday together a few weeks back, are the best of friends and regular practice partners, but that wouldn't stop them trying the beat each other on the table today. This match went as many people predicted though as recent German Masters champion Mark stormed to a 5-1 lead with his traditional "floating" method that always seems to make all the balls go in and made breaks of 62, 71 and a tournament high of 137. Ryan didn't read the script though and was quick to hit back himself with breaks of 79 and 63 but Mark pinched the final frame with a 84 to lead going into tomorrow's session 6-3. Based on his form today and over the last few months you would have to make Mark the heavy favourite to win the match and possibly even the tournament but as seen with Neil Robertson today the favourite doesn't always win.

Lastly up today Masters semi-finalist Jamie Cope will be mildly happy with his result against Wales latest Crucible debutant; Andrew Pagett. Dressed in a pink waistcoat and shirt he was quick to impress, knocking in a 75 break in the second frame. After this the match got a bit more scrappy with both players missing several easy shots but eventually with the aid of a 61, Andrew was leading Jamie 4-2. Unfortunately though for the world no.80 he wasn't able to hold on to his lead as Jamie hit back to 5-4 ahead with the aid of breaks of 90 and 54. In patches both players were potting really well but broke down on occasions. Which one of them will be able to find some consistancy tomorrow?

Full Day 1 Results (courtesy of Snooker.org)

Judd Trump 10-8 Neil Robertson

13-91 (72), 77-44, 56-51, 2-79 (79)
122-0 (122), 0-127 (127), 65-7, 76-39 (54), 0-100 (100)
54-64 (T 54), 78-17 (70), 58-59 (R 58), 1-90 (90)
67-1 (67), 75-24 (75), 65-25, 53-72 (T 53), 84-0 (83)

Ali Carter 8-1 Dave Harold

84-23 (65), 92-22 (66), 71-55 (63), 57-6
96-15, 84-48 (80), 81-40 (64), 65-1, 0-92 (92)

Mark Williams 6-3 Ryan Day

61-37, 18-71 (62), 75-7, 72-0 (71)
66-51 (D 51), 137-0 (137), 39-79 (79), 4-79 (63), 87-1 (84)

Jamie Cope 5-4 Andrew Pagett

75-56 (75), 45-75 (75), 68-39, 74-75
25-51, 35-71 (61), 73-30, 108-0 (90), 73-37 (54)

Shaun Murphy 9-0 Marcus Campbell

115-0 (93), 62-26, 100-8 (100), 73-27 (56)
76-1 (68), 71-34 (53), 128-8 (53,75), 99-0 (99), 96-33 (96)