On April 23, the second round of the 2022 World Snooker Championships continued at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, where Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao of the Chinese Legion played hand in hand in two matches in the morning of local time. Zhao Xintong, in the case of falling behind 5-11 in two stages, continued to chase points, and finally lost 9-12 regrettably, missing the top 8. Yan Bingtao competed with defending champion Selby for the second stage of eight sets, Yan Bingtao performed well, winning five of the eight sets to end with a 9-7 lead, and the third stage will continue at 2:00 a.m. Beijing time on April 24.
For Yan Bingtao, the second round of the showdown with defending champion Selby has become the most talked about duel among Chinese fans, because the two have a similar playing style and style, and are known as the new and old "Grind King" duels. In addition, in the recent games, Yan Bingtao has maintained a complete victory over Selby, so when predicting the trend and outcome of this game, many people are optimistic that Yan Bingtao has the opportunity to burst into the cold and pull the four-crowned Selby off the horse.
In the first 8 innings of the first stage of the two, although Yan Bingtao was not very gorgeous in terms of statistics, he has been in a more active position in the game, once leading 3-1 and 4-2, but was chased by Selby to a 4-4 draw. In the first stage, Yan Bingtao broke only one hundred in the single-shot data, while Selby had 5 strokes and 50+, so Yan Bingtao basically dragged down Selby's rhythm.
After the start of the second stage, Yan Bingtao took the lead again, and the ninth inning began to directly play the second shot of the game to break the hundred, and scored 101 points in a single shot. Yan Bingtao then played two more sets in a row, winning three sets in a row to take a 7-4 lead. Selby then seized the opportunity to break the hundred and scored a single 132 points to make it 5-7. In the 13th set, Yan Bingtao scored 91 points and led 8-5. Selby then shot a 64-pointer and a 131-point breaker to go down two consecutive sets to make it 7-8. In the final set, both of them scored a certain number of points first, and in the defensive battle, Selby made a mistake, and Yan Bingtao cleared the table to win the super point, ending the stage of the showdown with a 9-7 lead.