Higgins and Murphy complete clean sweep for the seeds on day one of UK Championship in York

Earlier on the opening day of main venue, televised action in the £1.2 million Triple Crown event, world number one and reigning champion Trump got his title defence underway with a 6-4 win against Stephen Maguire, while Si Jiahui recorded a speedy 6-0 whitewash over Ryan Day.

Three-time UK Champion Higgins defeated qualifier Ben Woollaston 6-2 to reach the last 16 of snooker’s second-most prestigious ranking event for the 24th time.

Runner-up at the International Championship in Nanjing earlier this month - the last ranking tournament on the World Snooker Tour before this - Higgins made breaks of 66, 51 and 84 as he went into the mid-session interval in total control at 4-0 up. On resumption, a 58 in frame five helped him reach the hill.

World number 37 Woollaston will have been disappointed having spurned opportunities during those opening frames, but the Leicester cueman - who lost to Higgins in his solitary ranking event final, the 2015 Welsh Open - made a morale-boosting counter clearance of 70 in frame six to pinch it on the final black after his opponent had crafted a 58.

A whitewash averted, Woollaston made the scoreline look a bit more respectable as he doubled his tally with the aid of a 65 in frame seven, but Higgins avoided a sweat as he wrapped up the win in the next.

Whilst Higgins has added a plethora of titles to his bulging career CV over the past 14 years, he has not won a Triple Crown event since the 2011 World Championship.

Next up for Higgins in York will be Murphy - a Wizard meets a Magician - as the reigning Masters and British Open champion saw off one of a record 12 Chinese players in the draw, Lyu Haotian.

A ranking event finalist at the 2019 Indian Open, Lyu twice lead in the opening mini-session (52 break, frame three) but Murphy (62, 58) pegged him back each time.

And when the cueists returned after their break, it was a different story as 2008 UK Champion Murphy strung together four consecutive frames along with runs of 63, 80 (a maximum attempt) and 57 to progress.

Despite many big match-ups down the years - including a World Championship final in 2009 - this is set to be the first time that Higgins and Murphy will meet at the UK Championship.

Their last encounter on the top flight only came a few weeks ago at the aforementioned International Championship when Higgins emerged a 6-2 victor in the quarter-finals.

Who is playing on Sunday 30th November in York?

On Sunday afternoon at the Barbican, newly-minted ranking event champion and first-time top 16 member Wu Yize will make his bow against a quarter-finalist from last year, Michael Holt. While on the other table world number three Neil Robertson faces the lowest ranked player in the draw, world number 81 Julien Leclercq.

In the evening, the first of three all-Chinese opening round ties takes place between Xiao Guodong and Pang Junxu, and Mark Williams starts his latest tilt for a hat-trick of UK crowns against David Gilbert.

To view the full draw, results, match schedule, and other information from the 2025 UK Championship, visit here.