World Championship: Who could challenge Ronnie O'Sullivan, Judd Trump and become a first-time Crucible winner?

Here is a fact to blow your mind: the last World Championship to feature two debut Crucible finalists was back in 1981. Steve Davis and Doug Mountjoy were each appearing in the world final for the first time. In every world title match in the 42 years since at least one of the finalists has been either a previous winner or runner-up.

Ad This illustrates that there are certain players better suited to come good in Sheffield than others, that they monopolise the latter stages of the championship – and how hard it is for first time winners to land the most prized trophy in snooker. World ChampionshipWorld Snooker Championship: Order of play, schedule and results from the Crucible3 HOURS AGO In the last 15 years there have only been four first time champions: Neil Robertson (2010), Mark Selby (2014), Stuart Bingham (2015) and Judd Trump (2019). Selby has won it on a further three occasions while Ronnie O’Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Williams have all added to their title hauls in this period.

In the case of Selby, Trump and Williams, they had each lost in a world final before becoming champion and, when assessing possible first-time winners, previous Crucible records are relevant to the discussion. For instance, both Kyren Wilson and Ding Junhui have already been beaten finalists, which means they have survived the epic three-day, four session semi-finals on at least one occasion. These best-of-33-frame matches can be brutal affairs, bearing in mind there is then a best of 35 final to play.