World Snooker Championship 2024: Jak Jones battles hard to reach quarter-finals

Jak Jones is through to the quarter-finals of the World Snooker Championship for a second year in-a-row after coming through a compelling last 16 tie with Si Jiahui, 13-9.

World number 44 Jones - the second lowest ranked player in this year's main draw - continues to build a rapport on the sport’s grandest stage. Having won three qualifying matches to make his debut at the Crucible last year, he reached the last eight where he bowed out to Mark Allen 13-10 after leading in the final session.

For the Championship’s ongoing installment, Jones navigated two preliminary ties before comfortably dispatching one of the form players of the season, Zhang Anda, 10-4 in round one. In the second round, he faced another Chinese star in 21-year-old Si, who like himself enjoyed a sterling debut run at the venue in 2023 when he went all the way to the one-table set up for the semi-finals.

The contest between the two qualifiers was a largely scrappy affair, although there was no shortage of drama or intrigue with a plethora of frames decided on the colours. In fact, Jones nabbed five frames on the final black ball.

Jones took the first session 6-2 and extended his advantage at 8-3 up, but German Masters finalist Si won the second session and eventually got to within one of his opponent at just 10-9 behind. However, 30-year-old Jones resisted the recovery, stringing together three frames to cross the line and set up a date with former champion Judd Trump starting on Tuesday.

This latest sequence of results for Jones comes somewhat out of the blue having only once been past the last 32 of a ranking event this season before this outing. Prior to his qualifying campaign, he was 67th on the one-year list.

Jones’ meeting with Trump will represent his fourth career ranking event quarter-final; two of those have come in snooker’s biggest event of all.