Shaun Murphy shocked by Jamie Jones in World Snooker Championship first round
By PA Sport
Last Updated: 23/04/18 7:49pm
Jamie Jones stunned former champion Shaun Murphy with a 10-9 victory in the first round of the World Snooker Championship on Monday.
Welshman Jones dumped the 2005 winner out of the tournament, holding his nerve to seal the deciding frame 72-1.
The 30-year-old world No 51 turned the tide late on Monday afternoon with a superlative 124 break in the penultimate frame to take the match to a decider.
And then Jones kept it together to ensure he dispatched the current world No 8, booking a second-round clash with Kyren Wilson.
Jones rallied from 8-5 down to complete a remarkable comeback, adding another impressive scalp, having already beaten Liang Wenbo 10-0 in qualifying.
Mark Allen saw off Crucible debutant Liam Highfield 10-5 to move into the second round.
The Masters champion turned his 6-3 overnight lead into a relatively straightforward victory, even though Highfield produced a 99 break in Monday's first frame.
Allen then rattled through the next three frames, including a seventh half-century break as he secured the win.
The 32-year-old will now meet Joe Perry in the second round, after the world No 22 pulled off a shock victory over defending champion Mark Selby.
"I didn't score as heavily as I would have liked but I did enough to win," Allen told the BBC.
"It was a good match even though it was not the most free-flowing. Liam pushed me all the way and there were lots of close frames."
Highfield admitted a missed brown in the second frame of the day on Monday proved the turning point in his defeat.
"The brown was really tough and, had that gone in, then maybe it would have been 6-5 and a different match," Highfield told the BBC.
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