2012 World Snooker Championship
The 2012 World Snooker Championship was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place from 21 April to 7 May 2012 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 36th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible and the last ranking event of the 2011/2012 season.
Ronnie O'Sullivan won his fourth world title by defeating Ali Carter 18–11 in the final. Aged 36, and just 55 days older than Dennis Taylor when winning the title in 1985, O'Sullivan became the oldest world champion since 45-year-old Ray Reardon in 1978.
John Higgins, the defending champion, lost 4–13 to Stephen Hendry in the second round.
On the opening day of the televised stage Hendry made the 88th official maximum break, his third at the Crucible and the 11th of his career. He announced his retirement from professional snooker following his defeat by Stephen Maguire in the quarter-finals. The tournament was sponsored by online casino Betfred.com.
Tournament summary
First round
- Debutants at the Crucible were Jamie Jones, Cao Yupeng, and Luca Brecel. It was also the first time that Cao and Brecel qualified for the televised stage of a ranking event. Cao and Jones advanced to the second round by defeating Mark Allen 10–6 and Shaun Murphy 10–8 respectively, whilst Brecel lost 5–10 against Stephen Maguire.
- Brecel became the youngest player ever to compete at the Crucible, at the age of 17 years and 45 days. He was also the first Belgian to play at the Crucible.
- Five Asian players competed in the first round, which is a Crucible record. Four were from China and one from Hong Kong.
- Mark Williams stated on Twitter before the championship, that he hated the Crucible and wished that the tournament was played in China. Williams was subsequently booed as he was announced to the crowd before his opening match. For this comment he was later fined a total of £4,000.
- Stephen Hendry made the 10th maximum break at the Crucible during his first round match with Stuart Bingham and to date, the last one made in the televised stages of the tournament. This was the 88th official maximum break. With this he equalled two records of O'Sullivan: the most official maximum breaks in professional snooker with eleven, and the most at the venue with three. Hendry won the match 10–4 in a rematch of one of his greatest upset defeats, in the first round of the 2000 World Snooker Championship when Hendry was defending champion and Bingham was making his television debut.
- Zhu Ying became the first Chinese person to referee a match at the Crucible by officiating the match between Hendry and Bingham.
- In his match against Ken Doherty, Neil Robertson became the fourth player to make three consecutive century breaks at the World Championship, after O'Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Selby.
- Mark Allen, following his first-round defeat by Cao Yupeng, accused his opponent of cheating. Allen claimed that Cao had not admitted to a at 5–4. However, he also conceded that the Chinese player had outplayed him during the match. World Snooker decided to start disciplinary action against Allen, who later admitted having gone too far. He was later fined a total of £11,000, and warned he would be suspended from the tour for three months if he breached the rules again in the next six months. Allen was also ordered to undergo media training.
- Ding Junhui created more controversy after his defeat to Ryan Day. Ding said that the table conditions were not right and complained about spectators being disruptive during the match. He was later fined £250, and warned by the chairman of the Disciplinary Committee for swearing during the live press conference.
- Andrew Higginson and David Gilbert reached the second round of the World Championship for the first time in their respective careers. Higginson defeated Stephen Lee 10–6, and Gilbert defeated Martin Gould 10–8.
- Eight out of the sixteen seeded players were beaten in the first round. Bingham, Graeme Dott, Murphy, Lee, Gould, Ding Junhui, Allen and Selby all lost their places in the tournament. This marked the most top 16 players to suffer defeat in the first round since 1992.
Second round
- Although John Higgins and Stephen Hendry had made 45 appearances between them at the Crucible and both had played in every tournament since 1995, this was the only time they ever met at the Crucible.
- Higgins made the 500th century break of his career in his match against Hendry. Two frames later Hendry made his 775th.
- Hendry defeated defending champion Higgins 13–4, and reached his 19th Crucible quarter-final, thus beating his own record of 18 quarter-finals. At that time only eight players had played at the Crucible 19 times or more: Hendry, Steve Davis, Jimmy White, Terry Griffiths, John Parrott, Peter Ebdon, Willie Thorne and Ronnie O'Sullivan.
- Ali Carter defeated Judd Trump 13–12, despite having trailed 9–12. In the deciding frame Trump needed four and got three, before Carter finally potted the last remaining red.
- Crucible debutant Jamie Jones reached his first ranking event quarter-final by defeating Andrew Higginson 13–10. After the second session Jones led 10–6. Higginson then won the four opening frames of the last session to make it 10–10, before Jones took the next three frames to win the match. Jones was also the lowest ranked player to win a second round match. The world number 36 became the third Welshman into this year's quarter-finals, following Ryan Day and Matthew Stevens.
Quarter-finals
- Stephen Hendry fell 2–13 to Stephen Maguire with a. After the match Hendry announced his immediate retirement from professional snooker, citing dissatisfaction with his standard of play in recent years and difficulty balancing competitive, commercial and personal commitments.
- Matthew Stevens won 11 frames in a row to beat fellow Welshman Ryan Day 13–5 from 2–5 down, and reached his first World Championship semi-final since 2005.
Semi-finals
- Ali Carter won his semi-final five months after threatening to retire from the game due to health problems and a loss of form. Carter, who has Crohn's disease, beat Stephen Maguire 17–12 to reach his second World Championship final.
Final
- The final was a repeat of the 2008 final, in which O'Sullivan beat Carter 18–8.
- O'Sullivan had played in three World Championship finals prior to this, and won them all. Carter's only previous final was the aforementioned 2008 tournament.
- Carter had never beaten O'Sullivan in 11 previous attempts in ranking events before this match.
- O'Sullivan made a 141 break in the eighth frame, the highest ever in a Crucible final. The previous record was 139 made by O'Sullivan in the 2001 final.
Prize fund
- Winner: £250,000
- Runner-up: £125,000
- Semi-final: £52,000
- Quarter-final: £24,050
- Last 16: £16,000
- Last 32: £12,000
- Last 48: £8,200
- Last 64: £4,600
- Stage one highest break: £1,000
- Stage two highest break: £10,000
- Stage one maximum break: £1,500
- Stage two maximum break: £40,000
- Total: £1,152,500
Main draw
Preliminary qualifying
The preliminary qualifying rounds for the tournament were for WPBSA members not on the Main Tour and took place on 5 April 2012 at the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield.Round 1
Round 2
Qualifying
The qualifying rounds 1–4 for the tournament that took place between 6 and 12 April 2012 at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. The final round of qualifying took place between 14 and 15 April 2012 at the same venue. Robert Milkins made the 87th official maximum break during his round four qualifying match against Xiao Guodong on 11 April 2012. This was the second maximum break of Milkins' career.Round 1
Rounds 2–5
Century breaks
Televised stage centuries
There were 71 century breaks in the televised stage of the World Championship. For every century break that was made during the 17-day championship in Sheffield, the title sponsor, Betfred, donated £200 to World Snooker's official charity for the 2011/2012 season, Haven House Children's Hospice, with the promise of topping it up to £25,000 if 75 centuries were made. However, Betfred boss Fred Done donated the full £25,000, despite being four centuries short of the target.- 147, 123, 100 Stephen Hendry
- 142, 125, 117, 101, 101, 101 Stephen Maguire
- 141, 130, 128, 117, 113, 110, 107, 104, 103, 101, 100, 100 Ronnie O'Sullivan
- 138, 136, 135, 134, 132, 127, 101 Jamie Jones
- 136, 109 Martin Gould
- 134, 132, 118, 112, 105, 101 Ali Carter
- 133, 124 John Higgins
- 131, 108, 106, 106, 100, 100 Neil Robertson
- 125, 113, 108 Cao Yupeng
- 123, 122, 116, 101 Matthew Stevens
- 121 David Gilbert
- 120, 114 Judd Trump
- 119, 113, 112, 110, 100 Ryan Day
- 116 Luca Brecel
- 115, 103 Joe Perry
- 111 Andrew Higginson
- 111 Mark Williams
- 110, 102 Stephen Lee
- 104 Ken Doherty
- 102, 101 Shaun Murphy
- 101 Mark Allen
- 100 Ding Junhui
Qualifying stage centuries
- 147 Robert Milkins
- 145, 128 Ben Woollaston
- 142, 125 Jamie Burnett
- 140, 134 Jamie Jones
- 140, 103 Aditya Mehta
- 140 Xiao Guodong
- 139, 138, 103 Liu Chuang
- 136, 107 Liang Wenbo
- 135, 124, 100 David Gilbert
- 134, 112, 110 Ken Doherty
- 134 Sam Baird
- 129, 107 Stephen Hendry
- 128, 102 Anthony Hamilton
- 127, 125 Barry Hawkins
- 123 Adam Duffy
- 122 Passakorn Suwannawat
- 120 Daniel Wells
- 117 Nigel Bond
- 116 Andy Hicks
- 113, 102 Jimmy Robertson
- 112, 101 Ryan Day
- 110, 100 Marco Fu
- 110 Peter Lines
- 108 Luca Brecel
- 108 Fergal O'Brien
- 107, 103 Jamie Cope
- 107, 102 Tom Ford
- 106 Anthony McGill
- 105 David Morris
- 105 David Grace
- 105 Michael Holt
- 103 Justin Astley
- 103 Rod Lawler
- 102 Andrew Pagett
- 102 Peter Ebdon
- 101 Liam Highfield
- 101 Adrian Gunnell
- 101 Cao Yupeng
- 100 David Gray