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Halo World Championship

Venue: Crucible Theatre, Sheffield Dates: 19 April to 5 May

Emotionally “drained” four-time champion John Higgins beat Joe O’Connor 10-7 in a tense affair as he reached the second round of the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre.

Higgins who turns 50 in May, overturned a 5-4 deficit from Monday morning to lead 7-6 at the mid-session interval while remarkably compiling just one break above 50, a superb century in the 12th frame.

But he struggled the shake off the Englishman until O’Connor failed to capitalise on several chances to win a dramatic 15th frame, that Higgins took to go 8-7 up.

The Scot crafted a wonderful 114 break to move further ahead and another half century helped him seal his victory.

Higgins had been cast as one of the favourites to triumph in Sheffield after winning the World Open – where he defeated O’Connor in the final – and impressively beating Mark Selby in the final of the Tour Championship.

However, his plans were thrown into doubt when his father-in-law became seriously ill on the eve of the tournament.

And he was visibly emotional while speaking to BBC Sport at the end of his contest with O’Connor.

“I left my apartment and I was in tears,” Higgins said.

“That was the most emotional I have ever been today. Obviously my father-in-law wasn’t great.

“I was sitting having dinner with my boy last night and I was thinking about sitting here with my dad 25 years ago. I was drained today.

“I had a couple of hours sleep and I came out tonight and felt a lot better and played a lot better. I am still so proud that I am still playing at a good level at this age. “

Meanwhile, Mark Allen beat China’s Fan Zhengyi 10-6 to book his place in the second round for the fifth consecutive year.

The 39-year-old from Northern Ireland, who had trailed 3-0 before fighting back to lead 5-4 overnight, made breaks of 88 and 102 on his way to setting up a last-16 tie with qualifier Chris Wakelin.

Allen, a former Masters and UK Championship winner, is bidding for a first world title to complete the full set of Triple Crown event victories.

The world number eight told BBC Two: “It was a bit of a shaky start yesterday and I thought Fan was very good at the start. I was really happy to be 5-4 in front overnight and I played some really good snooker today.

“I stole two frames in a row that I had no real right to win and it made the scoreline look a little flattering at the interval – 9-4 could have easily been 7-6 and then it would have been game on.

“I didn’t close it out as clinically as I would have liked but I finished off nicely. “

Allen is joined in round two by Zhao Xintong, who wrapped up a comfortable 10-4 victory over 2024 runner-up Jak Jones.

Jones’ exit means both of last year’s finalists have exited the 2025 event in the first round, following defending champion Kyren Wilson’s defeat by Lei Peifan on Saturday.

Zhao will meet fellow Chinese player Lei for a place in the quarter-finals.

In Monday afternoon’s other first-round contest, three-time UK champion Ding Junhui opened up a 6-3 advantage against world number 73 Zak Surety.

Debutant Surety struggled to settled early on and was 4-0 down before he found any rhythm at all.

However, the Englishman regrouped after the mid-session pause and made a century break as he took three of the remaining five frames to limit the damage prior to Tuesday afternoon’s concluding session.

Zhao’s first-round display was one of the most impressive of any player during the tournament so far.

The 28-year-old led 7-2 overnight and, after Jones took the first two frames of the morning, Zhao won the next three with breaks of 70, 55 and 87 to defeat the 16th seed from Wales.

Zhao is competing as an amateur in his first World Championship appearance since 2022, having completed a 20-month suspension earlier this season.

The former UK Championship winner was one of 10 players banned in 2023 following an investigation into match-fixing. He did not directly throw a match, but accepted charges of being a party to another player fixing two matches, and betting on matches himself.

But he will return to the professional ranks next season and both Jones and former world champion Neil Robertson saying they expect him to contend in Sheffield.

“I’m so happy he said that and I will try my best,” said Zhao when told of Robertson’s comments.

“Hopefully in the future, we will have a Chinese world champion here and we are trying to do that. “

Jones, 31, added: “Zhao looked really sharp, the qualifiers have done him good, and I’ve had two best-of-sevens in the past 10 weeks or so.

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Britain’s Emily Campbell made history as she won a fifth straight European Weightlifting Championship title.

The 30-year-old lifted a total of 281kg in a dominant display to take the gold medal in the +87kg category in Chisinau, Moldova.

Having won her first European crown in 2021, Campbell is the first British weightlifter to win five straight titles.

Campbell was the first British woman to win an Olympic weightlifting medal when she took silver at the 2020 Games in Tokyo, and she added a bronze in Paris last summer.

England trio Gus Atkinson, Jamie Smith and Sophie Ecclestone have been named among Wisden’s five Cricketers of the Year.

The players are chosen by the Wisden editor, a tradition that dates back to 1889. The awards are based on performances in the previous English summer and no player can win the award more than once in their career.

Hampshire spinner Liam Dawson and Surrey fast bowler Dan Worrall complete the line-up, which has been announced as this year’s Wisden almanack is published on Thursday.

India duo Jasprit Bumrah and Smriti Mandhana are crowned the leading cricketers in the world, while West Indies’ Nicholas Pooran is the world’s leading T20 player.

Atkinson took 12 wickets against West Indies on his Test debut in July, which sparked a remarkable tally of 52 scalps in the year.

Smith also made his Test debut in the summer as England’s new wicketkeeper and made his first century against Sri Lanka at Old Trafford.

The 24-year-old finished the three-match series with 280 runs at an average of 46. 6, second only to Joe Root.

His solid wicketkeeping also solved England’s selection dilemma as he edged out Jonny Bairstow and Surrey team-mate Ben Foakes.

Ecclestone has been an outlier in a difficult year for England’s women, as she becomes the first English woman to be named in the quintet since batter Tammy Beaumont in 2019.

England were unbeaten during their home summer against Pakistan and New Zealand, before the disappointing group-stage exit in the autumn’s T20 World Cup and a disastrous Ashes defeat which saw head coach Jon Lewis and captain Heather Knight removed from their positions.

Left-arm spinner Ecclestone, 25, is the world’s number one ranked bowler in both white-ball formats, and surpassed Katherine Sciver-Brunt as England Women’s leading T20 wicket-taker during the series against Pakistan.