page_title: 2018 UK Championship
section_title: Early rounds (1–4)
hierarchical_section_title: 2018 UK Championship / Tournament summary / Early rounds (1–4)
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Bild aufgenommen in Berlin während des German Masters im Snooker 2015. Stephen Maguire. English: Picture taken in Berlin during the Snooker German Masters in 2015. Stephen Maguire.
context_page_description: The 2018 UK Championship was a professional ranking snooker tournament, that took place from 27 November to 9 December 2018. It was the ninth ranking tournament and the first Triple Crown event of the 2018/2019 season. The event was broadcast on BBC Sport and Eurosport in the United Kingdom.
  Ronnie O'Sullivan, the defending champion, defeated Mark Allen 10–6 in the final, winning his 7th UK Championship and his 34th ranking event overall. In doing so, he became the first player since Stephen Hendry in 1996 to successfully defend the UK title. O'Sullivan broke Hendry's record for the most Triple Crown titles, Steve Davis's record of UK Championship titles and became the second player to defend all Triple Crown tournaments at least once, after Hendry.
  Stuart Bingham made the event's highest break of 145 in the first frame of his third round match against David Gilbert.
context_section_description: The tournament opened on 27 November 2018 with the first round of 128 players, which saw a number of upsets: most notably twice champion and World number one, Mark Selby, fell to unseeded amateur James Cahill, 3–6; and former champion and ninth seed Shaun Murphy lost by the same scoreline to 120th seed Chen Feilong. Also, 12th seed Ryan Day lost 2–6 to 117th seed Joe O'Connor; 20th seed Anthony McGill lost 5–6 to 109th seed Lu Ning; and 102nd seed Sam Baird came from 1–5 down to beat 27th seed Liang Wenbo 6–5. Thrice champion and fourth seed John Higgins scraped past unseeded amateur Dechawat Poomjaeng 6–5, however, Higgins then lost in the second round 5–6 to Alan McManus.
  The televised portion of the event began on 1 December as the second round got underway. This round saw defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan defeat Ken Doherty 6–5 despite being behind 1–4. Eighth seed Ding Junhui defeated Matthew Selt 6–5. 2018 Northern Ireland Open winner Judd Trump missed a black ball at the end of the tenth frame, which would have clinched a 6–4 win against Dominic Dale, but Trump then triumphed in the deciding frame, 6–5. James Cahill, who defeated world number one Mark Selby in the first round, lost to 64th seed Sunny Akani on another 5–6. Elsewhere in round two, Mark Williams and Barry Hawkins both recorded 6–0 whitewashes of their second round opponents, Daniel Wells and Ian Burns respectively. Hawkins' win was his second consecutive 6–0 win, having defeated his first round opponent Jamie Clarke by the same margin.
  The third round, played from 3 December 2018, saw the competition's last 32 players compete. The lowest ranked player remaining in the competition, Joe O'Connor (ranked 117th), was defeated by England's Joe Perry 2–6. However, 109th seed Lu Ning defeated 13th seed Luca Brecel 6–4. Ronnie O'Sullivan defeated Zhou Yuelong in a whitewash 6–0 to progress to the last 16.
  The fourth round began on 5 December 2018. Defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan progressed to the quarter-finals, defeating Jack Lisowski by a 6–1 scoreline. However, world champion Mark Williams lost to 15th seed Stephen Maguire in a deciding frame, having led 4–0 earlier in the match. Martin O'Donnell (ranked 56th) upset China's eighth seed Ding Junhui by 6–4, and then defeated Judd Trump by the same scoreline to eliminate him from the competition. Tom Ford survived a decider with Lu Ning, the lowest ranked player left in the tournament. Meanwhile, Mark Allen also survived a deciding frame against Neil Robertson to go through to the quarter-finals, after making two consecutive centuries from 4–5 down.
caption: Stephen Maguire defeated 2018 world champion Mark Williams despite being behind 0–4
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