page_title: 2018 World Snooker Championship
section_title: Qualifying rounds
hierarchical_section_title: 2018 World Snooker Championship / Tournament summary / Qualifying rounds
caption_attribution_description: Liang Wenbo beim Paul Hunter Classic 2016
context_page_description: The 2018 World Snooker Championship was a professional snooker tournament held from 21 April to 7 May 2018 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. Hosted by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, it was the 20th and final ranking event of the 2017/2018 season and the 42nd consecutive time the World Snooker Championship had been held at the venue. The tournament was broadcast by BBC Sport and Eurosport in Europe, and sponsored by betting company Betfred.
  Welsh left-hander Mark Williams won his third world title and 21st ranking title, defeating Scottish professional John Higgins 18–16 in the final. Williams' victory came 15 years after his second world title in 2003; before the start of the season, he had not won a ranking event in the previous six years. In winning the event, Williams received the highest prize money awarded for a snooker event, £425,000 of a total pool of £1,968,000. Aged 43, he is the third oldest winner at the crucible after Ronnie O'Sullivan who was 44 when he won the 2020 World Snooker Championship and Ray Reardon who was 45 when he won the title in 1978.
context_section_description: The qualifying rounds took place at the English Institute of Sport from 11 to 18 April 2018. In the first round of qualifying, Liang Wenbo achieved his third professional maximum break, and his second of the 2017/2018 season, in the 10th frame of his match against Rod Lawler. It was the second consecutive year a 147 was made in World Championship qualifying, and the fourth time overall. Liang came very close to becoming the first player to score two maximums in the same match, but he missed the final black after a break of 140 in the last frame. Liang was eliminated in the third round of qualifying; ranked at world number 19, he was the highest-ranked player not to feature in the main draw of the tournament, as both world number 17 Ryan Day and world number 18 Stephen Maguire successfully qualified.
  Only seven of the 64 unseeded participants in qualifying (players ranked outside the world's top 80) made it through the first qualifying round, and only one of those seven, Adam Duffy, progressed to the third qualifying round. Duffy did not, however, qualify for the main draw at the Crucible. Four players qualified for the Crucible for the first time: Lyu Haotian, Liam Highfield, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, and Chris Wakelin. Lyu was the lowest ranked player to reach the main stage, at world number 68.
caption: During the qualifying rounds, Liang Wenbo achieved his third professional maximum break.
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