World Snooker Championship: China’s Zhang Anda crushed by pressure after ‘Crucible curse’ dethrones Luca Brecel
- Brecel expresses relief at defeat by David Gilbert, saying attention that came with being world champion was ‘not my thing’
- Zhang says he ‘put too much pressure on myself’ to live up to his seeding as he loses to Jak Jones
China’s Zhang Anda said the pressure got to him after he followed defending champion Luca Brecel out of snooker’s Cazoo World Championship in Sheffield.
On an opening weekend when outsiders stole the show, world No 11 Zhang was far from his best against Jak Jones of Wales.
He arrived as his country’s second-highest seed after Ding Junhui at No 7, but lost Sunday’s second session at the Crucible Theatre by the same 5-2 margin as the first to crash out 10-4.
The 32-year-old from Guangdong province exited hours after Brecel, last year’s unlikely winner from Belgium, joined the long line of victims of the “Crucible curse”, falling on the very first day in a thrilling tussle with qualifier David Gilbert late on Saturday.
Jones, too, came through an exceptionally strong qualifying section. It was Zhang’s misfortune to face a man who looked at home on his run to the quarter-finals last year, but the occasion also had a hand in it.
“This was my first time as a seeded player,” said Zhang, who had billed the first round as his biggest match of the season. “I wanted to perform well but felt just too much pressure and performed terrible.”
He cited a need to live up to his rising status.
“I just feel a little bit nervous when I play at the Crucible,” Zhang said. “I still need time. Maybe next year I can do better.
“I put too much pressure on myself. As a seeded player, you need to perform like a seeded player.”
Brecel, the 19th first-time Crucible champion to fall short the following year and the seventh to do so in the opening round, said he was “relieved” not to carry the mantle any longer.
“It was a good year, and now I can look forward to being a non-world champion again,” the 29-year-old said. “I’ve been wanting the season to end for a long time so I’m quite relieved. I don’t like the attention, when everyone says, ‘oh, it’s the world champion’. It’s not my thing.”
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He contributed to his own downfall, missing relatively straightforward pots that could have got him over the line, notably at 9-6 and 9-8 up.
Gilbert, 42, a semi-finalist in 2019 but out of sorts since then, looked back on song here and proceeded to take the last four frames for a 10-9 victory.
“It’s been a while since I won a game in a proper arena,” world No 31 Gilbert said. “Hopefully I can build on it.”
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
