World Championship 2018: Jones whitewashes Wenbo to reach Crucible, Stevens crushes Doherty
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ByEurosport
Updated 18/04/2018 at 19:25 GMT
Jamie Jones claimed the shock scalp of Liang Wenbo at the World Championship qualifiers, with a superlative performance that saw him whitewash world number 19 Wenbo 10-0.
Jamie Jones
Image credit: Getty Images
Former English Open winner Wenbo had been in terrific form earlier on in qualifying, knocking in a 147 and missing the final black for a second straight maximum in his 10-2 win over Rod Lawler in the first round of qualifying.
He had few problems in his 10-5 win over Zhao Xintong in the second qualifying round, but toiled badly against Jones as the world number 51st-ranked Welshman knocked in eight breaks of 50 or over.
Jones produced runs of 54, 78, 63, 57. 79. 74, 58 and 58 in a quality display of break-building on Tuesday, leaving Wenbo needing to win all 10 frames on offer on Wednesday to avoid a premature exit.
And 30-year-old Jones secured the whitewash to reach the Crucible.
Jones has history at the Crucible, beating Shaun Murphy and Andrew Higginson on his way to making the last eight in 2012, but this result ranks alongside the Neath man's best performance in the sport.
Earlier, two-time World Championship finalist Matthew Stevens coasted through to the Crucible on Wednesday with a 10-2 drubbing of 1997 winner Ken Doherty.
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Matthew Stevens.
Image credit: Eurosport
The Welshman - who lost to Mark Williams in the 2000 final and Shaun Murphy five years later - earned his place in the last-32 draw on Thursday morning by winning the final three frames of a one-sided contest having led 7-2 from Tuesday's first session.
It was not exactly vintage stuff from either men with world number 52 Stevens compiling a high break of only 88 in the second frame to go with breaks of 73 in the fourth and a 63 in the 11th.
Ireland's Doherty is ranked at 77 in the world and has hinted at possible retirement from the sport. He won the ninth frame with an 85 knock in what was otherwise a fairly dismal defeat.
World number 74 Tian Pengfei could not emulate his shock win over fellow Chinese player Yan Bingtao in the second qualifying phase as he was demolished 10-1 by world number 55 Chris Wakelin, who smoothed his passage to the sport's biggest stage for the first time in his career with contributions of 72, 58, 74, 77, 55, 125 and 89.
The man from Rugby earns £18,000 for qualifying for the Crucible.
Robert Milkins completed a 10-3 win over Michael Holt while Ricky Walden won five of the last seven frames for a 10-6 win over Andrew Higginson.
The 16 winners from Wednesday will go into a draw with the top 16 seeds on Thursday morning at 10am (BST) to determine the first round at the Sheffield venue.
The World Championship begins on Saturday and runs until May 7 with all the action live on Eurosport and Eurosport Player.
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP QUALIFYING LATEST (BEST-OF-19 FRAMES)
- Ryan Day 10 – 6 Peter Ebdon
- Daniel Wells 4 – 10 Liam Highfield
- Jimmy Robertson 10 – 7 Michael White
- Hossein Vafaei 7 – 10 Stephen Maguire
- Adam Duffy 1-10 Xiao Guodong
- Stuart Carrington 10-3 Zhang Anda
- Graeme Dott 10-7 Mike Dunn
- Michael Holt 3-10 Robert Milkins
- Rory McLeod 2-10 Lyu Haotian
- Matthew Stevens 10-2 Ken Doherty
- Liang Wenbo 0-10 Jamie Jones
- Jack Lisowski 10-3 Alan McManus
- Andrew Higginson 6-10 Ricky Walden
- Mark Davis 7-10 Joe Perry
- Tian Pengfei 1-10 Chris Wakelin
- Alfie Burden 8-10 Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
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