UK Championship 2023: World Champion Luca Brecel moves past Yuan Sijun as Shaun Murphy and Ali Carter bow out

Luca Brecel beat Yuan Sijun 6-4 in the opening round of the UK Championship at the Barbican Centre in York, as Shaun Murphy and Ali Carter were both eliminated.

In the earlier game, world champion Bracel looked out of sorts as he began his encounter with Yuan, letting a couple of simple chances slip before the latter eventually got over the line for a 1-0 lead.

But the Belgian showed his class in frame two with a brilliant break of 127 that was trademark Brecel.

Yuan took the third frame before another Brecel century brought the scores level at 2-2 at the break.

With Juan starting to struggle, Brecel won the next two to open up a 4-2 advantage, but he failed to make the most of a gilt-edged chance to move within one of victory in the seventh frame.

Yuan eventually cleared the final few colours to reduce his deficit to 4-3.

It was the Chinese player’s turn to falter in the eighth frame on 44. A sloppy positional shot left him the wrong side of straight on the pink, which compromised him enough on the next red for him to miss into the middle.

A good opening red started a break of 37 for Brecel in response before a wild miss allowed Yuan back to the table and he made the most of it.

With the balls lying awkwardly, a well-taken 43 made it 4-4 and set up a best-of-three climax for a place in the second round.

Brecel drilled a fine, long pot to the bottom left to draw first blood in a thrilling end to the match and built a run of 86 to move within a frame of a spot in the second round.

A much tighter tenth frame followed as both players produced periods of safe play but Yuan couldn’t find the two snookers he needed at 69-41 as ‘The Belgian Bullet’ prevailed to book his place in the last 16.

After a brief building evacuation because of a small fire, Murphy and Carter both took to the tables in the evening session an hour later than scheduled.

Once players were allowed to safely return and get their tournaments underway, Carter found himself on the wrong end of a 6-3 result to companion Matthew Selt.

He took the opening frame before Selt produced a break of 115 to level matters.

Carter hit back with a strong break of his own worth 95, but Selt would once again reply with a better answer, a 102 clearance for 2-2.

Selt took the lead for the first time in a decisive fifth frame as Carter kept with him at 3-3, but the momentum was with Selt as he closed out the match with three successive frames.

The match between Murphy and Vafaei was tighter, but the Iranian player booked his place in the second round with a relatively comfortably 6-4 win.

He took a two-frame lead over the world No. 7 before Murphy matched his effort to draw level.

Vafaei sealed the fifth frame and then regained his two-frame cushion with a 100-point break.

From there, Murphy struggled to catch him as the 18th-ranked player got over the line with additional breaks of 70 and 67, despite Murphy’s 64 effort in the ninth.