World Championship: Milkins stages Crucible fightback as Murphy suffers shock exit

Milkins’ match against Perry was interrupted earlier this week when a man wearing a ‘Just Stop Oil’ T-shirt jumped on to table one and tipped orange powder over the cloth.

The crowd from Monday night’s match were given free tickets by event organisers for Thursday’s unscheduled morning session at the Crucible, and they watched Milkins defy the odds to reach the last 16.

Perry started the morning session which began at 09:30 – the earliest start to a World Championship match – with a 7-2 lead in the best-of-19 encounter.

However, Milkins, who won the Welsh Open in February, took the opening two frames of the session to move to within three frames of his opponent.

Perry responded by winning the next frame only for Milkins to hit back immediately by again moving to within three frames, and then reducing Perry’s lead to two after the former semi-finalist missed a simple brown.

An out-of-sorts Perry then fluffed his lines when potting a red to the middle pocket with a relentless Milkins making no mistake to move to one behind, and then drawing level to set up a three-frame shootout.

Milkins clinched the next frame to put him on the brink of glory before Perry scrambled to produce a clearance of 63 and take the match to a decider. But it was Milkins who held his nerve to secure the final frame and seal a memorable fightback. He will face Sheffield-based Si Jiahui, 20, in the next round, after the Chinese potter edged out Shaun Murphy 10-9.

Mark Selby saw off a determined challenge from qualifier Matthew Selt as the four-time champion started his bid for a fifth crown with a hard-fought 10-8 victory.

Selby led 6-3 overnight before moving 8-4 ahead on Thursday afternoon but Selt refused to shrink away in a battle that became increasingly attritional to narrow the deficit to 9-8.

But Selby, winner of this event in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2021, reeled off a 112 break to close out the win and set up a clash with Gary Wilson in the next round.

Elsewhere, three-time champion Mark Williams and qualifier Luca Brecel were all square at 4-4 after the first session of their second-round encounter.

Hossein Vafaei is set to discover whether he will be made to pay for his outspoken comments about seven-time champion Ronnie O’Sullivan when the pair start their second-round match on Friday.

Vafaei hurled verbal barbs at his former friend following his first-round win over Ding Junhui last weekend, accusing the 47-year-old of “disrespect” following an incident in 2021 German Masters qualifying, and adding: “He’s such a nice guy when he’s asleep.”

Opinions are split over whether the Iranian, ranked 23 in the world, made a wise choice in prodding O’Sullivan ahead of their best-of-25, three-day clash that is scheduled to conclude on Sunday morning.

Former world champion Mark Williams said he feared for Vafaei after his comments, asking “Why would you want to wake up the beast?” but another title rival, Mark Allen, was willing to give the 28-year-old the benefit of the doubt.

“I feel like too many players shy away from saying stuff about Ronnie,” said Allen. “He has said plenty about other players on tour over the years, so why not?

“Only time will tell if what Hossein has said was a good or bad idea.”