The 2012 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 2012 Betfred.com World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place from 21 April to 7 May 2012 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 36th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible and the last ranking event of the 2011/2012 season.
Ronnie O'Sullivan won his fourth world title by defeating Ali Carter 18–11 in the final. John Higgins, the defending champion, lost 4–13 to Stephen Hendry in the second round. Aged 36, and just 55 days older than Dennis Taylor when winning the title in 1985, O'Sullivan became the oldest world champion since 45-year-old Ray Reardon in 1978.
On the opening day of the televised stage Hendry made the 88th official maximum break, his third at the Crucible and the 11th of his career. He announced his retirement from professional snooker following his loss to Stephen Maguire in the quarter-finals. The tournament was sponsored by online casino Betfred.com.
Debutants at the Crucible were Jamie Jones, Cao Yupeng, and Luca Brecel. It was also the first time that Cao and Brecel qualified for the televised stage of a ranking event. Cao and Jones advanced to the second round by defeating Mark Allen 10–6 and Shaun Murphy 10–8 respectively, whilst Brecel lost 5–10 against Stephen Maguire.
Brecel became the youngest player ever to compete at the Crucible, at the age of 17 years and 45 days. He was also the first Belgian to play at the Crucible.
Five Asian players competed in the first round, which is a Crucible record. Four were from China and one from Hong Kong.
Mark Williams stated on Twitter before the championship, that he hated the Crucible and wished that the tournament was played in China. Williams was subsequently booed as he was announced to the crowd before his opening match. For this comment he was later fined a total of £4,000.
Stephen Hendry made the 11th maximum break at the Crucible during his first round match with Stuart Bingham. This was the 88th official maximum break. With this he equalled two records of O'Sullivan: the most official maximum breaks in professional snooker with eleven, and the most at the venue with three. Hendry won the match 10–4 in a rematch of one of his greatest upset defeats, in the first round of the 2000 World Snooker Championship when Hendry was defending champion and Bingham was making his television debut.
Zhu Ying became the first Chinese person to referee a match at the Crucible by officiating the match between Hendry and Bingham.
Neil Robertson became the fourth player to make three consecutive century breaks at the World Championship, after O'Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Selby.
Mark Allen, following his first-round defeat by Cao Yupeng, accused his opponent of cheating. Allen claimed that Cao had not admitted to a push shot at 5–4. However, he also conceded that the Chinese player had outplayed him during the match. World Snooker decided to start disciplinary action against Allen, who later admitted having gone too far. He was later fined a total of £11,000, and warned he would be suspended from the tour for three months if he breached the rules again in the next six months. Allen was also ordered to undergo media training.
Ding Junhui created more controversy after his defeat to Ryan Day. Ding said that the table conditions were not right and complained about spectators being disruptive during the match. He was later fined £250, and warned by the chairman of the Disciplinary Committee for swearing during the live press conference.
Andrew Higginson and David Gilbert reached the second round of the World Championship for the first time in their respective careers. Higginson defeated Stephen Lee 10–6, and Gilbert defeated Martin Gould 10–8.
Eight out of the sixteen seeded players were beaten in the first round. Bingham, Graeme Dott, Murphy, Lee, Gould, Ding Junhui, Allen and Selby all lost their places in the tournament. This marked the most top 16 players to suffer defeat in the first round since 1992.
John Higgins made the 500th century break of his career in his match against Stephen Hendry. Two frames later Hendry made his 775th.
Hendry defeated defending champion Higgins 13–4, and reached his 19th Crucible quarter-final, thus beating his own record of 18 quarter-finals. Only eight players have played at the Crucible 19 times or more: Hendry, Steve Davis, Jimmy White, Terry Griffiths, John Parrott, Peter Ebdon, Willie Thorne and Ronnie O'Sullivan.
Ali Carter defeated Judd Trump 13–12, despite having trailed 9–12. In the deciding frame Trump needed four snookers and got three, before Carter finally potted the last remaining red.
Crucible debutant Jamie Jones reached his first ranking event quarter-final by defeating Andrew Higginson 13–10. After the second session Jones led 10–6. Higginson then won the four opening frames of the last session to make it 10–10, before Jones took the next three frames to win the match. Jones was also the lowest ranked player to win a second round match. The world number 36 became the third Welshman into this year's quarter-finals, following Ryan Day and Matthew Stevens.
Stephen Hendry fell 2–13 to Stephen Maguire with a session to spare. After the match Hendry announced his immediate retirement from professional snooker, citing dissatisfaction with his standard of play in recent years and difficulty balancing competitive, commercial and personal commitments.
Matthew Stevens won 11 frames in a row to beat fellow Welshman Ryan Day 13–5 from 2–5 down, and reached his first World Championship semi-final since 2005.
Ali Carter won his semi-final five months after threatening to retire from the game due to health problems and a loss of form. Carter, who has Crohn's disease, beat Stephen Maguire 17–12 to reach his second World Championship final.
The final was a repeat of the 2008 final, in which O'Sullivan beat Carter 18–8.
O'Sullivan had played in three World Championship finals prior to this, and won them all. Carter's only previous final was the aforementioned 2008 tournament.
Carter had never beaten O'Sullivan in 11 previous attempts in ranking events before this match.
O'Sullivan made a 141 break in the eighth frame, the highest ever in a Crucible final. The previous record was 139 made by O'Sullivan in the 2001 final.
The prize fund for the championship was divided as follows:
Main draw
Shown below are the results for each round. The numbers in parentheses beside some of the players are their seeding ranks (each championship has 16 seeds and 16 qualifiers). The draw for the first round took place on 16 April 2012, one day after the qualifying, and was broadcast live by Talksport.
The preliminary qualifying rounds for the tournament were for WPBSA members not on the Main Tour and took place on 5 April 2012 at the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield.
Round 1
Round 2
The qualifying rounds 1–4 for the tournament that took place between 6 and 12 April 2012 at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. The final round of qualifying took place between 14 and 15 April 2012 at the same venue. Robert Milkins made the 87th official maximum break during his round four qualifying match against Xiao Guodong on 11 April 2012. This was the second maximum break of Milkins' career.
Round 1
Rounds 2–5
There were 60 century breaks in the qualifying stage of the World Championship.
There were 71 century breaks in the televised stage of the World Championship. For every century break that was made during the 17-day championship in Sheffield, the title sponsor, Betfred, donated £200 to World Snooker’s official charity for the 2011/2012 season, Haven House Children’s Hospice, with the promise of topping it up to £25,000 if 75 centuries were made. However, Betfred boss Fred Done donated the full £25,000, despite being four centuries short of the target.
