In the early morning of April 17, Beijing time, the first round of 16 of the 2022 Snooker World Championship was born, and the number one seed and defending champion England star Selby and Wales' Jamie Jones, after two stages of competition, finally Selby won 10-7 and advanced to the round of 16. In the full game, Selby shot a 3-shot 100 and a 4-shot 50+, while Jones only scored a 4-50+. In the second round, Selby will face the winner between Yan Bingtao and Wakelin.
Selby, who has won the World Championship four times, has held the world number one position for a long time since the beginning of the season, until after the Tour Championship before the World Championships, when he was surpassed by O'Sullivan. However, this season, Selby's overall state is not good, whether it is a ranking tournament or an invitational tournament, there is no championship in the account, and even has not reached the final. So his single-season rankings are not in the top eight, or even the top 16, so he missed several high-threshold welfare events, and has not played for a month and a half before the World Championships. Coupled with the fact that he is plagued by depression, his prospects for defending his title are not optimistic from the outside world.
Selby's opponent is Wales' Jones, an experienced player who reached the quarter-finals at the 2012 World Championships, but in his past record against Selby, he is at an absolute disadvantage with 1 win and 5 losses. Jones has also been average this season, with the best result in the ranking tournament being in the round of eight at the Gibraltar Open, the third-to-last leg of the season. Jones is currently ranked 37th in the world.
In the first stage of the two matches, Jones opened the door, leading 1-0, but then lost three consecutive sets, Selby played a single 71 points in the third set, and directly broke the hundred in the fourth set, single 134 points, 3-1 lead into the half-time. After restarting, Jones scored a one-set 60, followed by three consecutive sets of Selby rhythm, shooting a single 64, 73 and a second shot to break the hundred, shooting 129 points, winning three consecutive sets to lead 6-2. In the ninth inning, Jones scored a run to 3-6 to end the first stage.
The second stage continued in the evening hours of local time, with Selby scoring a single shot of 55 points to complete the super point, and then on the basis of the opponent's single 50 points, he completed the counterattack, winning two consecutive sets to take an 8-3 lead. In the 12th set, the two entered a tug-of-war, frequently switching defenses, and finally Jones black balled a deadlock, struggling to pull back a set, 4-8 behind. In the 13th and 14th innings, Jones scored 53 points in one shot, plus a backhand reversal, to chase back two consecutive innings to close the gap 6-8. In the 15th inning, Selby seized the opportunity to shoot the third shot of the game to break the hundred, a single score of 137 points, to win the match point 9-6. In the crucial 16th inning, Jones scored 51 points in one shot, twice overrun, chased a match point, and fell behind 7-9. In the 17th set, Selby seized the opportunity to play multiple times to overscore the suspense of the game, winning 10-7 and successfully advancing to the round of 16.