Can Jimmy White qualify for the 2025 World Snooker Championship? The Whirlwind's route to the Crucible

The qualifiers take place at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield between April 7 to 16. All entrants ranked outside the world's top 16 (following the conclusion of the 2025 Tour Championship) will need to go to these qualifiers.

In total, there are four qualifying rounds; players enter the fray depending on their world ranking. The lowest ranked competitors start in the first round, with those ranked between 17 to 48 coming in at round three. All matches at the EIOS are the best of 19 frames, held across two scheduled sessions.

The 16 qualifiers will then be randomly drawn against the 16 seeds for the main venue, televised stages which start on Saturday 19th April - just three days after the qualifiers finish.

Arguably the most familiar name taking part in these qualifying rounds is the legendary Jimmy White, who is preparing to feature in his 45th World Championship campaign.

The 62-year-old has reached the world final on six occasions throughout his illustrious and lengthy career, but snooker's ultimate prize eluded him on each occasion.

White still plys his trade on the professional circuit; the Londoner has had several wins on the circuit this season, with his best result coming at the Northern Ireland Open in Belfast where he made the last 32.

Currently positioned 93rd in the world rankings, though, White will start his latest World Championship tilt in the opening qualifying round, and therefore needs to win four consecutive matches to book a fairy-tale return to the Crucible Theatre for the main 32-player draw.

The last time White played at the Crucible in the sport's blue riband event was in 2006, where he lost to qualifier David Gray 10-5 in the opening round.

After falling outside of the world's top 16 following that loss, White has tried to qualify for the Crucible stages every year since, but has been unable to make it back - although he has played there several times in the World Seniors Snooker Championship since, during which he won that particular title in 2019, 2020 and 2023.

White recently made a maximum 147 break on camera in a pro-am tournament he went on to win.

Who is Jimmy White playing in the 2025 World Championship?

White will start the long journey to the Crucible in the opening qualifying round against Ukrainian amateur Anton Kazakov on Tuesday 8th April. The two-session match will begin in the morning from 10:00BST, with the concluding part starting at 19:00BST.

Kazakov is just 20-years-old - over four decades younger than White - but has previously been a professional player after he won the World Snooker Federation Junior Championship in 2022, which won him promotion to the World Snooker Tour.

However, as has been the case for many young rookies, Kazakov struggled to get results on the top tier and was relegated last year, although due to his performances at the subsequent Q School, he has regularly featured as a 'top-up' player in professional tournaments this season.

It will be the first time that White and Kazakov have faced each other on tour.

If White comes through that assignment, he would play world number 71 Ashley Carty in the second qualifying round.

29-year-old Englishman Carty will be taking part in his seventh World Championship. In 2020, Carty won three matches to qualify for the Crucible, where he gave former winner Stuart Bingham a workout before ultimately exiting 10-7 in the first round there.

Carty has had a decent, but unspectacular season, and is battling to keep his professional status. White is technically in the same position in terms of needing to preserve his tour card for next season, but it is very likely that one of snooker's all-time most influential players would get another invitational tour card should he be relegated.

White and Carty have played professionally just once before - in the last 128 of the 2015 China Open when Carty won 5-4.

Should White also get past Carty, in round three he would meet world number 27 Pang Junxu, who has qualified for the Crucible in each of the past two seasons.

The 25-year-old from China is seeing his stock in the sport continue to rise. A former ranking event finalist, Pang has enjoyed another good season with a run to the quarter-finals of the recent World Open, and a semi-final finish at the Northern Ireland Open.

Pang is 'two-and-o' over White in head-to-head meetings.

If White was to make the final qualifying round, it would already represent a fantastic effort - he hasn't made the final hurdle in world qualifying since 2013 where Robert Milkins denied him a Crucible spot, 10-5.

There are several possible opponents White could meet in the fourth and final qualifying round - either Julien Leclercq, Zhou Jinhao, Jamie Jones or Xu Si. The highest ranked of those is Xu, who has compiled two 147s this season.

Realistically, the odds are heavily stacked against White making to the Crucible stages - if he were to do so, it would be one of the most romantic stories in snooker history - but that won't stop his huge legion of fans keenly following his progress in Sheffield.