McGill Holds Edge Over Lisowski

Anthony McGill secured a 5-4 lead over Jack Lisowski after the first session of their opening round Betfred World Championship meeting.

McGill is making his sixth consecutive Crucible appearance, dating back to his run to the quarter-finals whilst making his debut in 2015.

Having dropped out of the world’s top 16 in recent times, he needed to come through last week’s qualifying event at the English Institute of Sport. McGill showed tremendous form, dropping just two frames in beating Jak Jones and Sam Baird, 6-1 and 10-1 respectively.

Lisowski is competing at the Crucible as a member of the world’s top 16 for the second consecutive year, having climbed the rankings after a string of impressive runs. He reached the final of the Scottish Open earlier this season, but was denied a maiden ranking title by Mark Selby.

The pair shared the opening four frames this afternoon to head into the mid-session at 2-2. When they returned, breaks of 64 and 87 helped McGill on his way to three frames on the bounce to lead 5-2.

However, Lisowski ended the morning strongly. The Gloucestershire cueman fired in a century run of 107 and followed it up by taking the ninth frame to set up an intriguing final session. They will return to play to a conclusion at 7pm.