Ronnie O'Sullivan promises to be an even greater threat than ever to his World Championship rivals when he begins the defence of his title today morning.
O'Sullivan starts the 17-day marathon with a best-of-19-frames meeting against Scottish qualifier Drew Henry.
On paper O'Sullivan should not have too many problems, although he came unstuck against recent Scottish Open runner-up David Gray at the same stage two years ago.
But the Chigwell player exorcised many of his demons by becoming world champion for the first time 12 months ago. And with the pressure off, UK champion O'Sullivan is looking to keep his world crown come the final day on May 6th.
"Winning at Sheffield last year took a huge weight off my shoulders," he said. "It gave me a lot of confidence and after that I felt like anything else would be a bonus.
"Some players say that once you win the world championship, the feeling is difficult to live up to. But for me it has meant the opposite as I enjoy playing the game a lot more now."
The longer matches for which the Crucible is famous usually favour the better player, although O'Sullivan insisted: "The longer frame matches here benefit everyone. You are going in there playing two best-of-nines in the first round and almost three best-of-nines in the second round.
"For someone to beat you over three best-of-nines, they deserve to win. You can have a bit of bad run for three or four frames but the chances of that happening over the entire match is unbelievable."
However, world number 18 Henry will not be over-awed by facing O'Sullivan, whose 10 to 1 win over Ken Doherty in the UK Championship final last December made him only the fifth player ever to hold the world and UK titles in the same year. They have met twice before and the record stands at 1-1.
Joe Swail is a 50 to 1 shot to become Ulster's first world champion since Dennis Taylor, famously, in 1985. And that might not be a bad bet as Swail has reached the semi-final for the past two seasons and compiled a 140 break - the highest of last year's championship.
Manchester-based Swail is also in action on day one and comes up against dangerous qualifier Joe Perry, who also battling to break into the top 16 for the first time.
In contrast, former Sheffield runner-up Matthew Stevens has endured a terrible campaign and has dropped from sixth to ninth on the provisional world rankings. He is surprisingly still fifth favourite in the betting and today faces qualifier Mike Dunn.
In another match starting tomorrow, Mark King, the world number 13, faces Aberdeen finalist David Gray looking for revenge for his Scottish Open defeat.
