Vafaei calls Crucible snooker’s answer to Wimbledon after branding it ‘smelly’ in 2024

Hossein Vafaei has claimed the Crucible must be respected and called it snooker’s answer to Wimbledon two years on from his scathing criticism of the world championship venue.

In 2024 the Iranian described the Crucible as “smelly” and compared the practice facilities to “like playing in a garage”. But after last month’s announcement that snooker’s showpiece will remain in Sheffield until at least 2045, Vafaei highlighted the importance of the Crucible to the sport.

After winning all four frames on Thursday to wrap up a 10-3 victory over Si Jiahui and become the first qualifier to reach the second round of this year’s Championship, Vafaei said: “The Crucible is a historical place.

“You can’t compare the Crucible to anywhere else because the Crucible is the home of snooker for all the snooker players.

“The Crucible for us is like the Wimbledon Championships. We have to keep the history and then we have to give it respect and hopefully we can make it bigger together, like Wimbledon, and we become like tennis as well.”

Vafaei spoke about the difficulty of playing amid the ongoing conflict in his native Iran, saying: “It’s very tough to be an Iranian at this time.

It’s like you lifting 10 people on your shoulders. It’s very hard.”

Vafaei went into Thursday’s afternoon session with a 6-3 lead after winning five frames on the spin on Wednesday to come from 3-1 behind.

And he picked up where he left off, punishing a missed pink from Si to take the first frame of the session 81-22 before winning a safety battle in the next to go 8-3 up. Vafaei continued to punish his opponent’s mistakes in the 12th frame and a break of 78 took him within a single frame of the second round.

China’s Si attempted to peg him back as he started the next frame strongly but Vafaei made it nine in a row to book a last-16 meeting with the world No 1, Judd Trump.

“It couldn’t be a better match for fans to watch,” Vafaei added. “Of course it’s a tough opponent, I respect him a lot. Hopefully we both show a good performance and everyone enjoys it. Hopefully the game goes the way the fans want.”

On the other table, the 2005 world champion, Shaun Murphy, surged into a 6-2 lead against Xiao Guodong in their second-round match.