Mark King through. Decider between Hang and Dunn. Have I written Ebbo off too soon ? Was 9-3 down to Greene, now 9-5

Dunn more or less through and yes Ebdon fighting back

Wow so Ebdon won, what an incredible comeback

Unbelievable comeback from 3-9!

what time did that match finish? It was 9-7 when I went to be at midnight!!

Typical Ebbo - probably slowed the pace down and Greene fell asleep!!

Finished at just after 2am according to snooker.org

Glad I didn't stay up

Looks like World Snooker are streaming the final two days on Youtube - here's the link to Day One:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=xi1KN-tsFEw

Ding looking good already 3-0 against Bond.

Meanwhile Un-Nooh just missed the final black when he was going for a maximum

Make that 4-0. Fair play to Ding he's making light work of those qualifiers - only dropped 5 frames so far. Would've been easy for him to have had a bit of a bad attitude going into them but he seems to have really knuckled down and got on with the job in hand.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Livesnook...665153/video/1

Unbelievable, to miss one black for a max is unfortunate, to miss two etc etc

The fact that he's just notched a 144 TC will be of little consolation I suspect.

I notice he lost the next 3 frames after the missed maximum, so credit to him for getting his head back together.

Looks like a tranche of tickets have been released on the official ticket site - almost all of them are in Row F (normally taken up by hospitality packages etc) so if you wanted to go first week, you can do:

https://www.cruciblesnooker.com/

How much is known of Mitchell Mann, he could be a first time qualifier

Everything you need to know Mitchell related:

http://cuetracker.net/Players/Mitche...tal-Statistics

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Mann


Ding looks like being the first qualifier tomorrow at this rate, now leading 7-1

Mcgill leads Un-Nooh 6-3 after first session, so looking good for him. Gilbert also has opened up a 6-3 lead over Lisowski

I was waiting to see what his reaction was when he missed but we didn't see him... all we saw was his cue being launched onto the table so I guess that is all we needed to see

ah man, too bad. twice in one season, he must be destined not to make a maximum.

Hey everyone, just checking in with a quick question! I found this on the official site:

http://www.worldsnooker.com/wp-conte...cible-draw.pdf

Basically I'm wanting to book some tickets for a first round match, but want to be sure those seedings for each match will remain in place and it's the qualifiers that are randomly allocated? I'm pretty sure this is obviously the case but just want to check before I buy tickets only to end up seeing someone I wasn't expecting

Yes those rankings stay the same and it is a random draw of the 16 qualifiers. World Snooker site also shows you who is playing when so you know which seed etc but it could be a case of getting what you can at this late stage. Zawtowers published his post earlier about a few extra tickets getting released but it looks like some of those have already gone. I am not sure what the policy is with returns but Zaw is your man

Jackk,

My FAQ should give you all the answers you need:

http://www.zawtowers.org.uk/Writing/...nookerfaq.html

The top 16 seeds at the cut off of qualifying after the China Open won't change - it's the qualifiers who are randomly drawn against them. With that in mind one of my FAQ questions has where those seeds are in round one.

It also explains the ticketing policy as well further down so may be of use to you.

If one session does complete early, stay behind if the other one is still going - the screens do lift up as well.

Thanks very much, those F&Q's are great and really helpful!

Unfortunately upon looking there's actually only one ticket left to the session I wanted - but I need three - I shall keep checking the site to see if anymore get resold, it was only through luck of randomly checking that I saw there were loads more available, hence why I came to ask in here.

I went to the Maguire/McGill match last year through asking if they had any tickets at the Crucible box office itself (I was visiting), I assume this is less likely to be doable for the bigger names though?

Absolutely. In fact the main reason there's tickets on sale currently is that some of the hospitality packages (that give you a ticket in Row F I believe) were unsold and so went back on sale today, which usually does happen late on.

If certain players don't qualify, tickets that their families etc have bought may go back on sale, but it'll tend to be quick.

If you definitely wanted to secure some tickets for 2017, they will most likely go on sale on the final day of the 2016 final (Monday May 2nd) - so it may be a good way to get three sorted. Remember that on the first day table one (10am and 7pm) traditionally has the defending champion.

I don't particularly want to see him at The Crucible as I can't stand the way he plays the game, but you have to hand it to that old scuffler Ebdon.
4-0 up tonight after only getting through in the stupid hours this morning.

Watched most of the live stream tonight, and have to say that Ali Carter looked pretty good on his way to taking the lead 8-1 against Dominic Dale - every time Dominic fluffed a break, Ali cleaned up and was pretty ruthless.

As Rob Walker and Neal Foulds said in commentary, Ali and Ding will be the two that the top 16 will want to avoid should they both seal it from 8-1 up.

Ebdon looks like he's just about to go 7-2 up against Burns, another marathon session

6 hours of snoozefest snooker from Ebdon to complete 9 frames. I'm sure he will apply the tactic should he get through. I always remember the match between him and Ronnie when Ronnie starting asking the audience the time and getting all huffy puffy.