World Snooker Championship 2024: Judd Trump opens up lead over Tom Ford as John Higgins battles past Jamie Jones

ByAlex Livie

Updated 25/04/2024 at 21:33 GMT

Judd Trump opened up a lead over Tom Ford in their second-round encounter at the World Snooker Championship. Trump and Ford shared the opening four frames but Trump upped the ante after the interval. On the other table, John Higgins battled past Jamie Jones. Stream top snooker action, including the World Snooker Championship, live on Eurosport and discovery+

Judd Trump worked a 6-2 lead over Tom Ford after the first session of their second-round clash at the World Championship, while John Higgins battled past Jamie Jones in the first round.

World No. 2 Trump was a long way short of his sizzling best, but seized on errors from his opponent to get his nose in front going into Friday’s second session.

There were no big breaks, 69 was the most Trump could muster, but he did enough to put himself in a good position in the race to 13.

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The first frame saw both players pass up chances and it turned into a scrappy battle.

For over 30 minutes it was attritional stuff, but Ford produced some brilliance - aided by a fluked brown - as he picked off a couple of superb pots to take the opener.

Ford flukes brown, makes superb clearance against Trump

Trump settled into the match with two solid contributions in the second frame to get on the board.

Ford failed to pot a simple blue in the second frame to hand Trump the chance to get on the board, and missed a red he would normally make with his eyes closed in the third.

Trump made an impressive 67, but missed the penultimate red and had to extricate himself from a couple of snookers before closing out the third to get his nose in front.

There were a couple of alarming misses from Ford in the fourth, but Trump failed to capitalise despite knocking in a superb red - and Ford countered to draw level at the first interval.

Trump knocks in superb long red against Ford

Ford made 56 in the fifth, but missed another simple red to hand Trump a chance to counter.

Trump was ruthless in pouncing on mistakes in his win over Hossein Vafaei, and he repeated the trick to steal the fifth.

The sixth followed the pattern of the previous frame, with Ford missing when in the balls and Trump pouncing to open up a two-frame lead.

Trump did not look totally at ease around the table, but he found some excellent pots in the seventh which he took with a break of 69.

Ford’s evening was summed up in the final frame of the session when he snookered himself on the remaining reds when potting the green - sarcastically giving a thumbs-up to the crowd.

A short while later, he missed a simple red and Trump stepped in to take the frame and open up a four-frame lead.

Higgins holds off Jones to set up Allen clash

John Higgins moved into the second round with a 10-6 win over Jamie Jones.

Four-time Crucible champion Higgins was under pressure when trailing 3-1 mid-way through the first session, but ran through four frames on the spin to secure a lead heading into Thursday night.

Higgins wraps up win over Jones at World Snooker Championship

The Scot took the opening two frames of the evening and won the frames either side of the interval to move into a 9-5 lead.

There were no huge breaks from Higgins, and there were signs of nerves as he struggled to close out the win but he took a scrappy 16th frame to set up a clash with Mark Allen.

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