English 20-year-old Liam Pullen is one win away from a dream Crucible debut, after defeating World Open champion Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 10-7 at World Championship qualifying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pullen is enjoying a breakthrough season, having reached a maiden ranking quarter-final at the Xi’an Grand Prix. That run included a defeat of four-time World Champion John Higgins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having entered the tournament in round one, Pullen has lived life on the edge this week. He was taken to a final frame decider by Shoot Out champion Alfie Burden, prevailing 10-9, and beat Iran’s Amir Sarkhosh 10-7. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This evening he spurned a golden opportunity at 9-6, missing a straighforward red and allowing Un-Nooh to pull within two. However, a steely century run of 105 saw Pullen over the line. It books a Judgement Day meeting with Nopon Saengkham, who beat Ricky Walden 10-6. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pullen said: “I missed a silly red. I just took my eye off it. I had a strong word with myself. In the end I potted a good long red and thankfully made a good break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’ve got used to the pressure. I’m enjoying it when I’m bang under it. That is a good thing to be able to do and tough. There are a lot of times you don’t enjoy it. I’m going to relish it on Judgement Day though. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I feel like I sort of belong now, but even then I’m not cocky. It is quite weird hearing my name and Judgement Day. I’ll be doing my best.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pullen’s old rival in the English junior ranks Stan Moody earned his first Judgement Day berth with a 10-5 win over Robbie Williams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
19-year-old Moody has himself made two quarter-finals this season and moved up to 44th in the Johnstone’s Paint World Rankings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He top scored with 128 today and will face Jiang Jun in the final round. Jiang earned his place with a 10-7 defeat of Elliot Slessor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A 10-3 win for Jamie Jones over Matthew Selt further cemented the Welshman’s tour status and Jackson Page secured further Welsh success with a 10-6 win over amateur Patrick Whelan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jones faces Poland’s Antoni Kowalski, who overcame Joe O’Connor 10-8 to make the final round. Victory would see him become the first Pole to grace the Theatre of Dreams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Page will meet China’s Pang Junxu, who came through with a nerve-shredding 10-9 win over Dylan Emery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scottish Open runner-up Chang Bingyu fired home a 147 break to lead 2023 Crucible king Luca Brecel 5-4 after the first session of their World Championship Qualifying clash and pocket at least \u00a3147,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having already composed a maximum in UK Championship qualifying, Chang earns the \u00a3147,000 bonus on offer for making two maximums across snooker’s four majors this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 23-year-old is also in line to scoop a further \u00a310,000 for making a 147 in the qualifiers and the \u00a315,000 high break prize for the event. That could potentially take the total payout to \u00a3172,000, by far the biggest payday of his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There have now been 24 maximums made on the circuit this season, which shatters the previous record of 15. Chang’s contribution is the 241st maximum break in snooker history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the end of a fantastic session of snooker. Chang ended the afternoon with three centuries and two further breaks over 50. They will return tomorrow afternoon from 2:30pm to play the best of 19 match to a conclusion and find out who progresses to Judgement Day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
THIRD ROUND RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Stan Moody (Eng) bt Robbie Williams (Eng) 10-5<\/p>\n\n\n\n Liam Pullen (Eng) bt Thepchaiya Un-Nooh (Tha) 10-7<\/p>\n\n\n\n Noppon Saengkham (Tha) bt Ricky Walden (Eng) 10-6<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jiang Jun (Chn) bt Elliot Slessor (Eng) 10-7<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jamie Jones (Wal) bt Matthew Selt (Eng) 10-3<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pang Junxu (Chn) bt Dylan Emery (Wal) 10-9<\/p>\n\n\n\n Antoni Kowalski (Pol) bt Joe O\u2019Connor (Eng) 10-8<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jackson Page (Wal) bt Patrick Whelan (Wal) 10-6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" English 20-year-old Liam Pullen is one win away from a dream Crucible debut, after defeating World Open champion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10833,"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-11633","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\/03\/Thepchaiya-Un-Nooh-Photo-by-By-Martin-Rulsch.jpg",1280,804,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Thepchaiya-Un-Nooh-Photo-by-By-Martin-Rulsch-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Thepchaiya-Un-Nooh-Photo-by-By-Martin-Rulsch-300x188.jpg",300,188,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Thepchaiya-Un-Nooh-Photo-by-By-Martin-Rulsch-768x482.jpg",640,402,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Thepchaiya-Un-Nooh-Photo-by-By-Martin-Rulsch-1024x643.jpg",640,402,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Thepchaiya-Un-Nooh-Photo-by-By-Martin-Rulsch.jpg",1280,804,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Thepchaiya-Un-Nooh-Photo-by-By-Martin-Rulsch.jpg",1280,804,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Thepchaiya-Un-Nooh-Photo-by-By-Martin-Rulsch-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Thepchaiya-Un-Nooh-Photo-by-By-Martin-Rulsch-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\/03\/Thepchaiya-Un-Nooh-Photo-by-By-Martin-Rulsch.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11633","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=11633"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11637,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11633\/revisions\/11637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}