Qualifier Vafaei stops seed player dominance at the 2026 World Snooker Championship

Iran’s number one player Vafaei will face 2019 World Champion Judd Trump in the second round in Sheffield. That three-session, best-of-25 frames encounter begins on Saturday afternoon.

Former Snooker Shoot Out winner Vafaei has had a difficult season contending with a shoulder issue and the political situation in his homeland, although he did enjoy a run to the quarter-finals of last month’s World Open in Yushan where he was denied by Trump.

The 31-year-old seemed to take that momentum forward to the world championship qualifiers at the English Institute of Sport earlier this month where he dropped only six frames across two matches to secure Crucible qualification for a fifth successive year.

On paper, Vafaei’s meeting with world number 15 Si - a semi-finalist here on debut three years ago - had the hallmarks of being a close affair.

Si, who didn't have great recent form heading into this year's Crucible, settled in very nicely, though, with a break of exactly 100 in the opening frame.

The Chinese star then took frames either side of Vafaei (65 break) getting on the scoreboard with the third to go into the mid-session interval 3-1 up.

However, the interlude dramatically changed momentum as Vafaei took all five remaining frames of the first afternoon session, crafting efforts of 81, 61, 60 and 105 in the process, and leaving his opponent pointless across the final three.

When the players returned on Thursday afternoon, it was more of the same, as world number 32 Vafaei claimed four more frames in-a-row - making it nine in total - along with runs of 53, 78 and 68 to get the job done before the mid-session interval.

It is the third time in the last four years that Vafaei has reached the last 16 of the World Snooker Championship, although he will be aiming to make his maiden quarter-final on the sport’s grandest stage.

It will be the third time that Vafaei has met Trump at the Crucible, and he’ll be hoping it’s a case of ‘third time’s a charm’ having been defeated 10-4 by him in the first round on debut in 2022, and 10-5 at the same stage in 2024.

Winning streak for the seeds is over

Vafaei is the first qualifier in the main draw of this year’s Championship to progress to round two; up until then, only seed players had advanced.

Before the ‘Prince of Persia’ secured progression, all 14 previously completed round one fixtures had gone the way of the seed.

There was talk of an unprecedented opening round clean sweep for the top 16 stars, but Vafaei put an end to that.

The closest that scenario has come was in 1983 and 1993 when 15 of the 16 seeds made it through. It could be the same equation this year with, at the time of writing, Neil Robertson leading Pang Junxu 5-4.

On the same afternoon as Vafaei posting the penultimate round one result, the first round two match got underway between Shaun Murphy and Xiao Guodong.

To view the full draw, results, schedule, and other information from the 2026 World Snooker Championship, visit our tournament information centre here.