Jak Jones: The unknown Welshman who shocked snooker now just two games away from a fortune

He's the Welshman who stunned the Crucible this week and now Jak Jones stands on the verge of making snooker history.

The 30-year-old qualifier from Cwmbran is through to the semi-finals of the 2024 World Championships in Sheffield after stunning former world champion Judd Trump in the last eight.

Nicknamed the 'Silent Assassin', Jones has only ever reached the semi-final stage of a competition once before in his career, but is now two wins away from becoming just the third qualifier to win the world title after Terry Griffiths in 1979 and Shaun Murphy in 2005.

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He will take on Stuart Bingham in the second semi-final, which gets under way on Thursday, May 2, at 7pm.

But while Bingham is a former world champion himself, little is known to casual snooker watchers about Jones, who could walk away from the Crucible half a million pounds richer in the coming days. Here's everything you need to know about the Welshman as he eyes another upset.

Who is Jak Jones?

Born in Cwmbran, Jones became a professional snooker player in 2010, at the age of 16, after he won the 2010 European Under-19 Snooker Championship in Malta.

He struggled in his debut season on the World Snooker Tour, suffering relegation as he ended the campaign ranked world number 94, well outside the top 64. However, two years later he was back on the tour and has remained on the professional circuit ever since.

In 2014, he recorded what was then the biggest win of his career when he knocked world number one Neil Robertson out of the Riga Open, while he came within one game of qualifying for the World Championship the following year.

In 2019, he reached the last 16 of the Riga Masters and the International Championship, beating Mark Williams in the latter, while the following year saw him reach the quarter-final of the English Open.

He reached his first ranking semi-final at the 2022 Gibraltar Open after beating the likes of Robertson and Stuart Bingham, but was knocked out by eventual champion Robert Milkins. He made his Crucible debut last year and defeated Robertson yet again as he reached the quarter-final, where he was knocked out by Mark Allen.

Route to the semi-finals

Ranked 44th in the world, Jones was a qualifier for the 2024 World Championship, beating fellow Welshman Jamie Clarke and Zhou Yuelong to make it through.

He breezed past world number 11 Zhang Anda in the opening round, winning 10-4, before defeating Si Jiahui 13-9 in round two.

Jones came up against former world champion and world number two Trump in the quarter-finals and was understandably a massive underdog, even going into the final session with the scores tied at 8-8. But Trump struggled and the Welshman capitalised, winning 13-9 in a seismic shock in Sheffield.

After the shock defeat, Trump admitted that Jones "did me a favour" as he would have "lost 17-0 playing like that" in the semi-finals. Remarkably, the Welshman, who is through to the semi-finals of a tournament for only the second time in his career, has now won five of his six appearances at the Crucible.

Now through to the last four, Jones will face Bingham in the semi-final which starts on Thursday, May 2, at 7pm. The 2015 world champion, who was also a qualifier for the tournament, stunned Ronnie O'Sullivan in a lively quarter-final, which he won 13-10.

The other semi-final sees the only seeded player left in the tournament, Kyren Wilson, face qualifier David Gilbert, who knocked out Stephen Maguire in the last eight. It is the first time three qualifiers have reached the semi-finals since the first year the tournament was staged at the Crucible in 1977.

If Jones does pull off another shock and makes it through to the final against either Wilson or Gilbert, that match will get under way on Sunday, May 5.

Career earnings

Jones is now two games away from the World Championship title and an incredible payday to boot, with the winner of the tournament taking home a staggering £500,000.

Having qualified for the semi-finals, he has already secured the largest single amount of prize money of his career, as he will still take home a cool £100,000 even if he is knocked out by Bingham in the last four. If he makes it through to the final, but falls at the final hurdle, he will bank £200,000.

Before this year's tournament, the £50,000 cheque he took home from last year's quarter-finals was by far the biggest of his career.

However, Jones hasn't done too badly for himself over the years, taking home around £380,000 in prize money over the course of his nine seasons as a professional - excluding his current World Championship winnings - according to CueTracker