Reigning world snooker champion, Stuart Bingham has been knocked out on day 1 of this years world snooker championships in a dramatic deciding frame battle against Ali Carter.
Bingham started out well, taking the first frame however a few early on nerves showed and Bingham lost the next five frames. The reigning world snooker champion then pulled himself together and won the next 3 frames to trail 5-4 at the end of the first session.
In this evenings session, world champion Bingham came out positively and won the first frame to level the match, however Carter then knocked in a couple of nice breaks and won a scrappy frame to once again take a 3 frame advantage at 8-5.
World snooker champion, Stuart Bingham played some amazing snooker after the mid session interval to take 4 frames in a row and went ahead by 9-8.
Carter looking very emotional managed to knock in a great century break to level up at 9-9.
In the final frame, first blood went to carter after a poor Bingham safety, who managed to open up a 39 lead, however after some safety play, Bingham was given a couple of chances but missed 2 pinks to the middle pocket. A couple of great safety shots from Carter and a few fantastic long pots was enough to knock out the reigning world snooker champion Stuart Bingham.
The curse of the crucible lives on for at least another year now that Bingham has gone home early and this year will see a new world champion lifting the trophy.
On the other table, Marco Fu took on former world snooker champion, Peter Ebdon. Fu was in awesome form and knocked in a couple of century breaks during the match. Overall Marco Fu made 7/10 frame winning breaks while all Ebdon could do was look on. The final score in that match was 10-2 Marco Fu.