World Snooker Championship 2024: John Higgins set to meet Mark Allen in tasty round two tie

John Higgins completed the last 16 line-up at the 2024 World Snooker Championship as he won nine of the final 12 frames to defeat qualifier Jamie Jones 10-6 in round one.

A permanent fixture at the Crucible Theatre every year since 1995, the four-time champion will meet world number three Mark Allen in arguably the standout tie of the second round. One of only two all-seed matches in the last 16, it will be the sixth time in just over five months that Higgins and Allen will face each other in competition.

Welsh cueist Jones - who eliminated 2010 world champion Neil Robertson 10-9 in the final qualifying round - began the match with a 118 and established a 3-1 lead at the first mid-session interval. However, 31-time ranking event winner Higgins won the next four frames on resumption, and although Jones took the last, it was the great Scot who led 5-4 overnight.

In the concluding session on Thursday evening, Higgins took control with the opening two frames and he managed to keep his opponent at arm’s length to reach the last 16 of snooker’s blue riband tournament for an incredible 26th time. The 48-year-old has not lost an opening round match at the Crucible since 2014.

Defeat for Higgins would have seen him slip outside the world’s top 16 for the first time since 1995; a near 29-year unbroken spell in the elite. This is still the case, though, if he loses to Allen.

Talking in the Eurosport studio post-match, a happy Higgins explained about using a new cue and how he’d been practicing at one of the academies in Sheffield to prepare for the big event.

In head-to-head meetings this season, Allen leads 3-2 with victories in the Champion of Champions semi-finals, Masters last 16 and the opening round at the recent Tour Championship. Higgins recorded consecutive wins in the last 16 of the German Masters and the quarters of the Welsh Open.

In terms of world championship clashes, Higgins has claimed both; 17-13 in the 2009 semi-finals and 13-9 in the last 16 of the 2017 installment.