Former Crucible champion Luca Brecel springs into action with impressive qualifying round win

Three years ago, Brecel became the first player from mainland Europe to claim snooker’s blue riband event, despite having never won a match at the Crucible before 2023.

But since his finest moment in the sport - a journey where he defied the odds time and time again - it has been a real struggle for Brecel in ranking competition on the professional circuit, appearing in only one semi-final during that time.

As a consequence, he plummeted down the world rankings when his prize money was removed from his total last year, not only falling outside of the top 16, but the top 32, too.

There have been some green shoots of recovery at times - last year he made the quarters in Sheffield where he ran world number one Judd Trump close for a while - but his current position meant he had to attend world championship qualifying this year for the first time since 2021.

And he couldn’t have really faced a much tougher opponent at this stage of the competition than the very dangerous Chang, who was runner-up at the Scottish Open in December.

The contest would turn out to be a cracker. Brecel deposited the opening frame with an 89 before Chinese youngster Chang ran three frames in-a-row along with efforts of 69, 129 and 100.

Brecel then stringed together three consecutive frames of his own (60 break, frame five) before Chang (58) levelled, then produced a feat of snooker perfection with a maximum 147 break in the final frame of the opening session.

Having crafted a maximum earlier in the season at the UK Championship qualifiers, Chang unlocked a £147,000 jackpot for himself with potentially more to come on top of that with other available bonuses. It was a record-extending 24th 147 of the top tier season.

Returning the following afternoon for the concluding session, runs of 51 and 70 helped Brecel to nudge ahead, but Chang replied with back-to-back frames of his own as contributions of 62 and 82 shifted momentum towards him at 7-6 up.

But four-time ranking event winner Brecel produced some brilliant form at the business end of proceedings, constructing breaks of 81, 120, 63 and 52 as he notched up four out of the last five frames for an impressive and morale-boosting 10-8 victory. Chang had restored parity earlier in the session at 8-8 after a run of 62.

The century that Brecel made in frame 15 was bizarrely his first three-figure effort of the season. A player who has won the sport’s ultimate prize, the 31-year-old has blown hot and cold throughout his career, but he is an ‘X-Factor’ type player for any event he is involved in.

The Belgian moves through to the final qualifying round, where he will play in Judgement Day Part Two on Wednesday at the English Institute of Sport.

He will have another compelling preliminary tie to negotiate as he faces the Championship runner-up from two years ago, Jak Jones.

World number 19 Jones - who is back at the qualifiers having been the number 16 seed at the Crucible last year - defeated three-time ranking event winner Marco Fu, 10-6. Jones racked up runs of 119 and 135, and a further six half-centuries.

To view the full draw, results, schedule, and other information from the 2026 World Championship qualifying rounds, visit here.