Kyren Wilson held off a spirited fightback from qualifier Jak Jones to win the World Snooker Championship crown in a final 18-14.
The 2024 world championships saw top seeds tumble early on with the likes of Luca Brecel, Mark Selby and Mark Williams among those failing to get past the first round.
Pre-tournament favourites Ronnie O'Sullivan and Judd Trump failed to make it past the quarter-final stage, the latter of which suffered a surprise defeat to qualifier Jones.
On the other side of the draw, Wilson was making waves with his early round displays as he breezed past Dominic Dale and Joe O'Connor before an impressive victory against John Higgins.
Kyren Wilson shared a warm embrace with his two sons
BBC
Wilson continued that fine form as he knocked out David Gilbert to reach the final while Jones pulled off another upset by defeating a third former world champion in Bingham.
It set up a fascinating clash with Jones aiming to become only the third qualifier to ever win the World Snooker Championships while Wilson had not shown any kind of form this season to suggest he could win at the Crucible.
The match appeared to be over before it even began as Wilson rattled off the first seven frames in Sunday's opening session.
Jones managed to avoid a whitewash by clinching the final frame and made a better show of it in Sunday's afternoon session where he won five of the nine frames.
The Welshman got off to the perfect start on Monday's afternoon session to close to within three of Wilson as he took the first two frames.
However, Jones was guilty of making multiple costly mistakes that allowed Wilson to keep returning to the table.
Wilson went into the evening session with a commanding 15-10 lead as Jones failed to capitalise on some apparent nerves creeping into the 32-year-old's game.
Once again, Jones had a great opportunity to ramp up the pressure on Wilson after a strong break in the 28th frame only to scupper his chance and leave his opponent just one frame away from becoming world champion.
Jak Jones missed several opportunities to catch Kyren Wilson
PA
The 30-year-old managed to avoid the match being over before the mid-session interval with a break of 67 helping him over the line to make it 17-12 in favour of Wilson.
All the pressure being on Wilson to get over the line appeared to free up Jones to play his usual aggressive style and it began to look like an unlikely comeback was on.
Jones got the Crucible crowd excited in the next frame as he came agonisingly close to the tournament's first 147 break before two reds on the side cushion ended his effort short.
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Jak Jones was aiming to become the third qualifier to win the Crucible crown
PA
And he got another commanding break off in the 31st frame to put him 37 points ahead of Wilson before wrapping up his third consecutive frame to move within three of his opponent.
Wilson finally got his chance in the next frame to move ahead after Jones fouled twice, but he showed his nerves on a couple of occasions by losing the cue ball as the pressure of becoming world champion was clear to see.
But Jones was ultimately punished for going for a tricky double that gave Wilson another visit to the table where he was able to clear up to become the 2024 world champion.
