Aaron Hill and David Gilbert scored World Championship qualifying wins to book a repeat Judgement Day showdown following a pulsating meeting 12 months ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hill moved one win away from a Crucible debut after a 10-3 win over Yao Pengchang. A burst of four consecutive frames this evening, which included back-to-back century runs of 133 and 137, saw him over the line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Irishman suffered an agonising 10-9 loss to Gilbert last year, having led 7-3 and 9-7. Hill believes he can use that experience to his benefit, when he faces Gilbert, who defeated Leone Crowley 10-3 to secure his slot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It was difficult to take, but I’m going to use it as a bit of a force for this year. Hopefully I learn from it and I don’t make the same mistakes as last year,” said 24-year-old Hill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I learned that having a lead means nothing! You just have to keep plowing on, one frame at a time. I don’t care if I’m 9-0 up or 9-0 behind, I will still be battling to win the next frame. I’m so pleased to be through to another Judgement Day. It was a great buzz around that match last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’ll try my best not to think of last year. It doesn’t matter who you have on Judgement Day, you will need to play well. If I do then I fancy my chances. If I don’t then Dave will punish me as he is a top class player. Hopefully karma is a real thing and it might be on my side this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Last year is probably the best thing that could have happened to me. I gained experience and strength and brought it with me to this season.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Belgian Julien Leclecq took a massive step towards tour survival with a 10-7 win over Yorkshireman Ashley Hugill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leclercq knew he had to win to avoid relegation from the circuit and he showed great character to get over the line. Having led 9-4, he was pegged back to 9-7 before taking the 17th on the colours. That earns him a third round clash with two-time Crucible finalist Ali Carter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leclercq said: “It means a lot to me. I had to win to stay on the tour. I’m so happy to have got the result. I was thinking it was going to go 9-8 as I missed a few chances in the frame before. I’m looking forward to playing Ali. All the pressure is off now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I knew at 9-4 the match wasn’t over and he started to play well. I can enjoy it now and relax. It will be the first time I’ve played Ali and I can’t wait for the game.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were crushing wins on the two main tables this evening for Hossein Vafaei and Stuart Bingham. Iran’s Vafaei eased to a 10-2 defeat of Polish 15-year-old Michal Szubarczyk, while 2015 World Champion Bingham was a 10-2 victor against Wang Xinbo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n SECOND ROUND: <\/strong>Long Zehuang (Chn) bt Fergal Quinn (Eng) 10-2; Oliver Lines (Eng) Mark Llyod (Eng) 10-2; Fan Zhengyi (Chn) bt Lan Yuhao (Chn) 10-3; Martin O\u2019Donnell (Eng) bt Zhao Hanyang (Chn) 10-5; Liam Highfield (Eng) bt Wang Yuchen (Chn) 10-4; Umut Dikme (Ger) bt Sam Craige (Eng) 10-9; Julien Leclercg (Ger) bt Ashley Hugill (Eng) 10-7<\/p>\n\n\n\n THIRD ROUND: <\/strong>Matthew Stevens (Wal) bt Peter Lines (Eng) 10-8; Stuart Bingham (Eng) bt Wang Xinbo (Chn) 10-2; Gao Yang (Chn) bt Tom Ford (Eng) 10-8; Aaron Hill (Ire) bt Yao Pengcheng (Chn) 10-3; Hossein Vafaei (Egy) bt Michel Szubarczyk (Pol) 10-2; David Gilbert (Eng) bt Leone Crowley (Ire) 10-3; Zhou Yuelong (Chn) bt Robbie McGuigan (Ire) 10-3; Michael Holt (Eng) bt Daniel Wells (Ire) 10-5;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aaron Hill and David Gilbert scored World Championship qualifying wins to book a repeat Judgement Day showdown following<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11572,"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":[7],"tags":[378],"class_list":["post-11571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-snooker"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/David_Gilbert.jpg",1920,1302,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/David_Gilbert-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/David_Gilbert-300x203.jpg",300,203,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/David_Gilbert-768x521.jpg",640,434,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/David_Gilbert-1024x694.jpg",640,434,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/David_Gilbert-1536x1042.jpg",1536,1042,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/David_Gilbert.jpg",1920,1302,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/David_Gilbert-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/David_Gilbert-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/David_Gilbert.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11571","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=11571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11573,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11571\/revisions\/11573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}