Welshman Jamie Clarke scored a fine 10-5 win over Haydon Pinhey at the Snooker World Championship first round, after a year away from the circuit which has seen him set up his own snooker academy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Victory for Clarke sees his counterpart Pinhey suffer tour relegation. That is a fate which 31-year-old Clarke faced himself at last year’s event. In the following 12 months he has competed on the amateur Q Tour circuit and after topping the rankings Clarke regained professional status. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
During his time away, Clarke has grown his own business called the Jamie Clarke Snooker Academy, which is situated in Llanelli. He says that his love for the game has been reinvigorated by becoming a business owner and that he is playing the best snooker of his life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That showed through today in the two-time Crucible competitor’s peformance. It included a career high century run of 138. Next up, Clarke faces Belgium’s Ben Mertens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clarke said: “To be honest with you, I just needed a little sabbatical for the year and I feel like it has done me the world of good. I’ve got some clarity and I’m ready to mix it with the big boys. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It isn’t a massive club or a pub. It is a little community with two tables. I have 50 or 60 members who play there regularly. It has given me a buzz to be honest with you. Seeing people playing the game for fun and not as a job, which is what I’ve done for the last ten years. It has been nice to be away from the pressure and not travel more than a mile away from my home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It is a lovely little facility. That has given me motivation. I’m in the prime of my life at 31. It has been a rollercoaster of a year. I have been playing my best ever snooker and I feel like I’m ready. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’ve got a kid’s club going as well. I’m trying to get the schools involved. Seeing the community and the kids come through. There a couple of young lads enjoying the game. Seeing their enthusiasm for the game has given me a buzz to play.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile Chinese 17-year-old Lan Yuhao produced a sensational display to overcome a game Chatchapong Nasa 10-5.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yuhao fired in ten breaks over 50, including three centuries, to earn a second round clash with former European Masters winner and compatriot Fan Zhengyi.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last frame of the match even saw Yuhao embark on a 147 attempt. However, he missed the 15th red and his run ended on 112.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yuhao said: “I was really excited at the end of the match. Everything was going well, except for the penultimate red. I played that shot really nicely and got back on the black, but here was a bit of pressure. Maybe I lost my concentration.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“To be honest, today I think I played at about 90 to 100 percent of my level. It\u2019s rare for me to produce that kind of performance. Recently I\u2019ve been practising a lot and I\u2019ve had quite a lot of high-intensity match practice as well, so that has definitely helped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“For the next match, I\u2019ll just relax and play. If I can play like I did this morning, then I think I definitely have a chance to win.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The afternoon session saw round two get underway. Michael Holt put on a fine performance to move 7-2 ahead of Bai Yulu. Meanwhile, Polish 15-year-old Michal Szubarczyk moved 5-3 up on Sanderson Lam. Those games and several others will be played to a conclusion tomorrow from 2:30pm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n First round: <\/strong>Mark Llyod (Eng) bt Liu Wenwei (Chn) 10-3; Ashley Hugill (Eng) bt David Grace (Eng) 10-4; Fergal Quinn (Eng) bt Hatem Yassen (Egy) 10-4; Lan Yuhao (Chn) bt Chatchapong Nasa (Tha) 10-5; Jamie Clarke (Wal) by Haydon Pinhey (Eng) 10-5; Zhao Hanyang (Chn) bt Mahmood El Hareedy (Egy) 10-3; Liam Highfield (Eng) bt Oliver Brown (Eng) 10-4; Umut Dikme (Ger) bt Farakh Ajaib (Pak) 10-7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welshman Jamie Clarke scored a fine 10-5 win over Haydon Pinhey at the Snooker World Championship first round,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[378],"class_list":["post-11431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-snooker"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jamie-Clarke.jpg",2011,1125,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jamie-Clarke-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jamie-Clarke-300x168.jpg",300,168,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jamie-Clarke-768x430.jpg",640,358,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jamie-Clarke-1024x573.jpg",640,358,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jamie-Clarke-1536x859.jpg",1536,859,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jamie-Clarke.jpg",2011,1125,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jamie-Clarke-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jamie-Clarke-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jamie-Clarke.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11433,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11431\/revisions\/11433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}