O'Sullivan to face Edbon at Crucible

Ronnie O'Sullivan
17 April 2012

John Higgins will begin the defence of his Betfred.com World Snooker Championship title against China's Liang Wenbo - but the pick of the first-round draw sees Ronnie O'Sullivan face Peter Ebdon.

Ebdon beat O'Sullivan in a famous quarter-final in Sheffield seven years ago, when his slow play drew criticism and left O'Sullivan clearly frustrated.

Ebdon breezed through his qualifier on Sunday night, beating Alfie Burden 10-0, and after winning the China Open at the start of the month he is a player in rich form.

The clash of the former world champions, Ebdon a one-time winner from 2002 and O'Sullivan a three-time title-holder, will take place over afternoon sessions next Monday and Tuesday.

Higgins will begin his campaign at 10am on Saturday, day one of the tournament.

Luca Brecel, the 17-year-old Belgian who will be the youngest player to appear at the World Championship, was handed a tricky opening match against Scotland's Stephen Maguire.

Seven-time champion Stephen Hendry will play Stuart Bingham on Saturday afternoon, and should Hendry survive that test he would face the winner of the clash between his fellow Scot Higgins and Liang.

World number one Mark Selby, who has been troubled by a back problem, will face Barry Hawkins in an all-English contest, while last year's runner-up Judd Trump will tackle Welshman Dominic Dale.

Neil Robertson, the 2010 champion, starts against Ireland's 1997 title-holder Ken Doherty, while two-time winner Mark Williams, Wales' biggest hope for the title, takes on Chinese player Liu Chuang.

First-round draw: John Higgins v Liang Wenbo, Stuart Bingham v Stephen Hendry, Graeme Dott v Joe Perry, Stephen Maguire v Luca Brecel, Shaun Murphy v Jamie Jones, Stephen Lee v Andrew Higginson, Ali Carter v Mark Davis, Judd Trump v Dominic Dale, Mark Williams v Liu Chuang, Ronnie O'Sullivan v Peter Ebdon, Martin Gould v David Gilbert, Neil Robertson v Ken Doherty, Ding Junhui v Ryan Day, Mark Allen v Cao Yupeng, Matthew Stevens v Marco Fu, Mark Selby v Barry Hawkins.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in