On the evening of January 9, the opening match of the 2022 Snooker Masters began, and the defending champion Yan Bingtao appeared against the 46-year-old veteran, Welsh "golden left hand" Mark Williams. Yan Bingtao, in the case of a 3-1 lead in the first half, once lost 4 consecutive sets in the second half, and finally lost 4-6 in the big score, regretting a round trip. In the game, Yan Bingtao scored 3 strokes of 50+ and 1 shot of 100, while Williams scored 6 strokes of 50+, plus 1 stroke of 1 hundred. Williams, who has advanced to the quarterfinals, will be the winner between Higgins and Zhao Xintong.
At last year's Masters, Yan Bingtao, who won the opportunity to play for the first time, staged a "dark horse" miracle, winning consecutive victories all the way, and finally defeated Higgins in the final, won the championship, and achieved a major breakthrough for post-00 players. This year, he played as a defending champion, and the attention received was naturally quite high, especially before the game, Yan Bingtao moved to a new house in the United Kingdom, and the well-known host Rob Walker visited with the filming team, so that fans could get a closer understanding of the daily life of the Chinese supernova and the behind-the-scenes story of training and competition. There is no doubt that Yan Bingtao, who changed his fate by playing, met his girlfriend in the Uk and bought a house with a bonus, a proper winner in life.
The Masters opener yan Bingtao's opponent Williams, who won the Masters championship as early as 1998, has won the championship for the second time in 2003, but in the nearly 20 years since, he has not won the championship record again, and has not even advanced to the final. However, the old and strong Williams still has excellent performances in other competitions, and in 2018, at the age of 43, he won the World Championship for the third time, creating another record for an advanced title. In the past few seasons, Yan Bingtao and Williams have played each other 5 times, Williams maintained the advantage of winning all 3 games in the ranking competition, and Yan Bingtao only won 2 invitational tournaments.
In the first set of the game, Williams made a mistake of 37 points, Yan Bingtao completed the reversal with 64 points in a single shot to take a 1-0 lead; in the second set, it was Williams who started, but then Yan Bingtao came back again, reversing with a single shot of 71 points, leading 2-0. Williams seized the opportunity in the third set and scored 63 points to make it 1-2. In the last set of the first half, Yan Bingtao scored 57 points with a single shot in the backhand, and the big score was 3-1 to enter the half-time break.
Entering the second half, the situation took a big turn, and Williams was full of firepower, playing four consecutive sets to achieve a 5-3 rebound and take the lead in match point opportunities. Shot 4 50+ in four innings, plus a 100-shot breaker for 104 points. At the critical moment, Yan Bingtao withstood the pressure, faced the complex ball, played a breakthrough with a very high gold content, single shot 122 points cleared the table, and the big score was chased to 4-5. In the tenth set, Williams tried to go far, but luckily scored into the middle bag, a shot to win 41 points, and then Yan Bingtao's difficult defense, Williams did not touch the target ball twice, was convicted of fouls, the third time if he could not play this round again, he would be judged to be defeated, directly scored from the far platform, and then completed the super score and completed the kill. Defending champion Yan Bingtao lost 4-6 and stopped in the first round.