2026 World Snooker Championship: Hossein Vafaei ‘fighting to make Iranians proud’

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.

However, he said news from back home meant he was often not focused on snooker.

“You get a bad text in the day and you can’t focus on your job. How can I focus?” said Vafaei.

“No-one knows how tough it is but hopefully it will be over soon, then the safety comes back to my country.”