Mark Selby of both the Masters and Welsh Open to Ronnie O'Sullivan, but won the Gdynia Open with a 4–1 victory over Martin Gould. Before the World Championship Selby withdrew from the PTC Finals and China Open due to personal reasons. He beat Robert Milkins 10–6, Sam Baird 13–11 and Kyren Wilson 13–8 to face Marco Fu in the semi-finals. Selby drew level at 12–12 thanks to winning a 76-minute frame, the longest in Crucible history and went on to win 17–15 with an excellent snooker on the brown in the final frame. He took a 6–0 lead over Ding Junhui in
2017 World Snooker Championship Ali Carter 10–7 in a tense encounter to reach the last 16. 2010 champion Neil Robertson made his 500th career century during his 10–4 first round win over Noppon Saengkham of Thailand. Stuart Carrington became only the fifth player, after John Higgins, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Mark Selby and Neil Robertson to make century breaks in 3 consecutive frames in a World Championship match during his encounter with Liang Wenbo; however, Liang won the match 10–7. In total, 7 former world champions qualified for the last 16: Selby, Bingham, O'Sullivan, Higgins, Robertson, Dott and Murphy. Ebdon was the only former champion in