The tournament that all snooker fans wait all year for is now fully underway at the Crucible. The 2010 Betfred.com World Snooker Championships will no doubt entertain and may also throw up a few surprises along the way as well.

The first man through to round 2 was the defending champion, John Higgins, who came through a potentially tricky tie against Barry Hawkins. After trailing early on Higgins found another gear and won the match 10-6 to set up a match against either Mark King or Steve Davis.

Sunday was the real start of the tournament in terms of completed results as no less than four players checked in to round 2.

Stephen Hendry showed some true class to beat China’s young debutant Zhang Anda. The seven time world champion trailed 9-7 before rattling off three frames with breaks over 50 to reach round two with a 10-9 win. Anda will no doubt be back onto our screens next year and looks another great prospect.

The other player making his debut at this years championships was Tom Ford. The Leicester based cueman has been on the circuit for 10 years and was delighted to have qualified. He will be disappointed however as he lost to Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen. After trailing the first session 8-1 it was always going to be a struggle and Ford only managed to get 3 more frames, finally losing 10-4.

Two further matches went to the same scoreline. Mark Selby beat Ken Doherty and now faces Hendry in round two and Joe Perry beat Michael Holt. Perry will be especially pleased after a less than good season so far.

Coverage continues on on BBC and Eurosport.

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