Northern Ireland Open Snooker Results: Selby, Robertson, Murphy Out

Six seeds played on the first day at the Waterfront Hall. Only one of them, the defending champion Jack Lisowski, is still in the tournament. Si Jiahui and Xiao Guodong went out in the morning session. By the end of the night Mark Selby (seed 5), Neil Robertson (seed 4) and Shaun Murphy (seed 8) had joined them, and Ali Carter had lost 4–0.

The scorelines look alike. The frame scores don't, and each defeat went wrong in its own way.

Selby: 2–0 up, then four frames in a row

Selby started the way he usually does. He won the first frame 57–21 with a 54 and the second 70–53 with a 70. Louis Heathcote, ranked 66th, then won the next four: 65–7 with a 64, 73–64 with a 59, then 85–21 and 86–6. Selby scored 27 points in the last two frames.

The same pairing happened in the same round in Belfast two years ago. In October 2024 Heathcote beat Selby 4–3 in the last 64, when Selby had just won the British Open. Two meetings at this event, two wins for the player ranked more than sixty places lower.

This one also hurts our record most. Our match page had Selby at 82%, the strongest call of the day. Selby had been winning short matches this season, six of seven over best of 7 before Sunday, so the loss is hard to put down to the format alone.

Robertson: 3–0 down in three frames

Robertson's defeat was quicker. Ricky Walden, ranked 56th, won the first frame 85–0, then made 75 and 76 to lead 3–0. Robertson answered with an 80, but Walden took the fifth 63–32 without needing a big break.

For Robertson this is a pattern now, not a one-off. He has played three best-of-7 matches this season and lost all three: 4–1 to Pang Junxu at the British Open, 4–3 to Luo Zetao at the English Open, and now 4–1 to Walden. Over best of 9 or longer he is 9–4. The short events are where his season is leaking points. Our match page had him at 67%.

A week ago we wrote about a possible Robertson v Selby quarter-final in this half of the draw. Neither got past the first match.

Murphy: outscored from the first frame

Liam Davies, ranked 89th, didn't need Murphy to miss much. Every frame he won came with a break of 60 or more: 62, 81, 90 and a 104 to finish it. Murphy's 78 in the fifth was the only 50-plus break he made. When a player ranked that low scores like that, the higher ranking doesn't protect anyone.

Our match page had Murphy at 67%. His record in best-of-7 matches this season is now four wins and two defeats, and earlier this month we noted that he led in every match he lost from the quarter-finals on. Sunday was not one of those: he never led.

Carter: close for two frames

Xu Si's 4–0 over Carter reads like a thrashing. It wasn't, at first. Xu won the first two frames 59–42 and 66–52, neither with a break of 50. Once he was two up he made 56 and 70, and Carter scored 11 points in the last two frames. Our match page had Carter at 70%.

What the day adds up to

We published picks on 12 of Sunday's matches. Adding up the percentages, the favourites should have won about seven of them. They won four. Three of those misses were seeds from the top eight, and the one at 82% was the safest-looking call on the card.

Two of the losses were collapses after a decent start (Selby, Carter) and two were outscoring jobs from the first frame (Robertson, Murphy). In the last 32, Heathcote meets Matthew Selt, Walden meets Joe O'Connor, Xu Si meets Sam Craigie, and Davies plays the winner of Pang Junxu v Alfie Burden. The last 32 is best of 7 again, so none of them can be written off.

The Belfast hub has every result so far, the grade on each pick, and today's schedule, including Judd Trump v Martin O'Donnell tonight.