The World Snooker Championship 2018 was held from April 21 to May 7, 2018 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. The tournament was won by Mark Williams who beat John Higgins by 18-16 in a high quality encounter.
The Grove has five players involved in the Championship: Jack Lisowski who had successfully gone through three qualifying matches, Luca Brecel, Neil Robertson, Ali Carter and Judd Trump all being there by right, being in the top 16 of the rankings.

Luca and Neil unfortunately fell at first hurdle. Neil though was disappointed but philosophical (source Worldsnooker):

I had bad problems with my cue tip heading into the match, that was pretty evident last night. Rob played so well that he never allowed me to recover from that.

“I put on a new tip this morning and had an hour with it and it was alright, but going out there is completely different. But I’ve got to give Rob credit for how well he played, he was relentless throughout. I had a slight sniff at 6-5 but he rattled off the last four frames amazingly well.

“Long gone are the days where there are shocks in the first round. If I was a qualifier, unless I drew Ronnie O’Sullivan, I’d be quite happy to play anybody knowing I’ve won three matches in a week, against someone coming in cold. Rob came here with nothing to lose. He walks out to the cider drinker song and the crowd goes nuts. He has approached it the right way.

“Ten years ago there would probably be only two or three banana skins in the draw, now there are a lot more. It’s good for the game to have more players coming through, and not to have them crumble.

“For me to come away with two big trophies after a tough season away from the table, I’m pretty happy with that. I’m just disappointed not to have had a good run here as well.

Jack reached the last 16, having beaten former World Champion, Stuart Bingham by 10-7 in the last 32. Unfortunately his form deserted him in the next round where he was comprehensibly outplayed by John Higgins who beat him by 13-1.

Both Ali and Judd reached the quarter finals.

Ali had never beaten Ronnie O’Sullivan before in any ranking event, but came out the winner by 13-9 of his last 16 clash with his nemesis. He celebrated wildly! Ali had been fired up by an incident before the match, that was in fact neither players fault. There was a bit of needle during the match, but nothing serious …

Unfortunately Ali’s run came to an end in the QF, at the hands of Mark Williams, the eventual World Champion.

Judd was beaten in the deciding frame of his quarter finals match against John Higgins. Here is his reaction after the match (source Worldsnooker):

“I’m 28-years-old now and I need to start winning these tournaments if I want to be the best. I take no positives from losing. In the end I should have been tighter in the last frame, but the way he pots balls under pressure, I don’t think there’s anyone else who would even take those balls on, not even Ronnie O’Sullivan. I think he’s probably the most calm under pressure in the game.

“I thought I was unlucky to lose in the end. He played really well in the last four or five frames, but after I made that clearance at 12-11 you just want that chance. He twitched a red in the last frame but left it safe. He plays some amazing snooker at times, where you can’t play against him. I just stuck in there and you’ve got to get the luck against him. Time and time again it just doesn’t happen.”

Here is the deciding frame:

All detailed results are on Cuetracker