On Sunday 24th April 2011, I was back at the Crucible Theatre for Day 9 of the Betfred.com World Snooker Championship, today watching the first sessions of the second round match between Stuart Bingham and Ding Junhui.

It was an early start after yesterday’s long trip and to be honest I was very tired, but after arriving at the Crucible ready for the 10am session and walking around for a bit, I quickly woke up.

The match we were seeing was the opening session of the second round tie between Bingham and Ding, and despite the man from China being strong favourite, Bingham got off to an excellent start taking an early 3-0 lead. Ding pulled two frames back and looked to be making a good comeback, but Bingham won two of the last three frames to lead 5-3 at the end of the session. He looked to be playing much the better snooker and Ding looked nervous, which is understandable with the massive pressure on him to succeed from his fans back in China.

After the session had ended we decided to stick around for a while since it was another beautiful day. We spotted Stuart Bingham and went over to congratulate him on his great performance in the session and wish him luck for the rest of the match. Stuart is always really friendly to us and I had a picture with him.

We chatted to various regulars that we know, including the Statman, Paul from Holland, Kathrin from Germany and we had our yearly photo with William, Noleen and Dylan Craig from Scotland. Martin Gould also spoke to us and told us that he would be playing some 6 red frames against the public in the cuezone later on, and so we went up to watch him in the and get some photos of him playing.

Just as we were leaving the Winter Gardens and heading off home, there was a real stroke of luck as with hardly anybody about,I spotted  6 times World Champion Steve Davis walking up towards the cuezone, and I had to ask him for a photo. Steve was very friendly and had no problem standing for the photo. This really topped off another great day at the Crucible.

Snooker, Football and now some more Snooker!

The foyer begins to fill up as the 10am session approaches

The Statman makes his way up to the Crucible foyer

Chinese Snooker Fans

The Table

On the front row!

The players seats

Rob Walker warms up the crowd

Rob Walker chats the some Chinese fans who had travelled all the way from Leeds University!!

CJ de Mooi in his seat for Ding v Bingham

Rob Walker has a quick chat with commentators John Parrott and Dennis Taylor

My view

Rob Walker looks straght down the camera

Stuart Bingham is greeted by Rob Walker

Stuart Bingham

Ding Junhui

Rory McLeod

John Higgins

Stuart ‘Ballrun’ Bingham

me, The Statman, my Dad, Martin Gould, Kathrin and Paul

Our yearly photo with the Craig’s

Snooker portaits in the Winer Gardens

Gould breaks off

Martin Gould takes on members of the public

Martin Gould in the cuezone

Gould at the table

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Martin watches his opponent

Using the rest

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with Steve Davis

Doherty and Davis in the Studio, with Martin Gould playing on the table behind them

Steve Davis in the BBC Studio