Vafaei 'fighting to make Iranians proud' at Worlds

Hossein Vafaei said he "is fighting to make Iranians proud" as he prepares to begin his World Snooker Championship campaign.

The 32-year-old Iranian beat Chinese practice partner Gao Yang 10-4 in the final round of qualifying last week to secure a place at the Crucible for a fifth successive season.

His reward is a meeting with 2023 semi-finalist Si Jiahui of China on Wednesday, with the winner facing world number one Judd Trump in the last 16.

But he said it had been extremely difficult to focus on the sport with the ongoing conflict in his home country, which began at the end of February.

"It's been very hard, very, very hard. My family are safe," said Vafaei.

"I'm fighting as well for my country, for my family and I'm trying my best and will give it my all."

Vafaei, ranked 32nd in the world, has reached the last 16 of the World Championship in 2023 and 2025 and had to win two qualifying ties to get back there this year.

He hopes winning matches in Sheffield will help provide a lift to the people in Iran.

"If I do well, if they can see me - of course some of them can see me - it will be a proud moment," said Vafaei.

'I've had a tough year mentally, personally, and everything'

Image caption,

Hossein Vafaei has been as high as 15th in the world rankings, but is currently 32nd

Vafaei beat Barry Hawkins in the first round at the Crucible last year before losing 13-10 to Mark Williams.

An injury wrecked the start of this season but an intensive physio programme got him back playing, although he then had a poor run of results following his return.

"With my injury, I took two or three months [out] and after that I lost my form," he added. "It was a shoulder problem, it was hurting my fingers and all the nerves on my left side.

"It was tough to get back my form and to find something and the struggles started from there.

"I'm under lots of pressure. I'm not having a good season. A lot of people have been like 'where is he? what's he doing?'. They're thinking I've stopped playing snooker.

"I've had a tough year mentally, personally, and everything."

But there has been some encouragement on the table as before his success at qualifying, he beat Williams and Zhang Anda to reach the quarter-finals of last month's World Open where he was beaten by Trump.