This was the 36th consecutive year that the tournament had been staged at the Crucible. The main stages of the event were broadcast by the BBC in the United Kingdom. The top 16 players in the latest world rankings automatically qualified for the main draw as seeded players. Higgins was seeded first overall as the defending champion, and the remaining 15 seeds were allocated based on the latest world rankings. The number of frames required to win a match increased throughout the tournament. The first round consisted of best-of-19-frames matches, with the final match being played over a maximum of 35 frames. All 16 non-seeded spots in the main draw were filled with players from the qualifying rounds. Prize fund The prize fund for the championship was divided as follows: Winner: £250,000 Runner-up: £125,000 Semi-final: £52,000 Quarter-final: £24,050 Last 16: £16,000 Last 32: £12,000 Last 48: £8,200 Last 64: £4,600 Stage one highest break: £1,000 Stage two highest break: £10,000 Stage one maximum break: £1,500 Stage two maximum break: £40,000 Total: £1,152,500 Tournament summary First round The first round was played from 21 to 26 April as the best of 19 frames held over two . Three players were making their debut at the event: Jamie Jones, Cao Yupeng, and Luca Brecel. It was also the first time that both Cao and Brecel had qualified for the televised stage of a ranking event. Cao and Jones advanced to the second round by defeating Mark Allen 10–6 and Shaun Murphy 10–8 respectively, whilst Brecel lost 5–10 against Stephen Maguire. Brecel was the youngest player ever to compete at the Crucible, aged 17 years and 45 days old. He was also the first Belgian to play at the Crucible. Mark Allen, following his first-round defeat by Cao, accused his opponent of cheating. Allen claimed that Cao had not admitted to a at 5–4. However, he also conceded that the Chinese player had outplayed him during the match. World Snooker decided to start disciplinary action against Allen, who later admitted having gone too far. He was later fined a total of £11,000, and warned he would be suspended from the tour for three months if he breached the rules again in the next six months. Allen was also ordered to undergo media training. In his match against Stuart Bingham, Stephen Hendry made the 10th maximum break to be made at the event. This