Jak Jones admitted that he was struggling to breathe during his heavy first round defeat to Mark Selby in the World Snooker Championship.

Jones, who finished runner-up in 2024, was beaten 10-2 by four-time world champion Selby on Wednesday evening.

The 32-year-old Welshman is asthmatic, and revealed that he was struggling to breathe and worried that the condition can develop into a panic attack.

Jones did not blame the issues on his defeat however, saying that he wanted “rip [his] shirt off.”

“I practised quite well and felt quite good coming here. But I felt absolutely shocking this morning, probably one of the worst I’ve felt in a match,” he said.

“When you can’t breathe, you can’t be composed and I feel pressure in my head and get headaches.

“It turns into a panic attack because I can’t breathe and I want to just rip my shirt off.

“I probably would’ve lost by the same scoreline, but it just makes it harder with my asthma if you can’t breathe properly.”

Jones does not wear a bow tie when competing due to his asthma, and, so far, has not been able to find a way to combat the issues during matches.

“I can end up feeling absolutely terrible, I get tremors and stuff like that,” Jones added.

“If I take my medication it can make it worse [when playing] as it can give me the shakes.

“It happened in my last match [his qualifier] against Luca Brecel but I got through it.”

Jones was up against it from the start, trailing 7-1 before edging the final frame of the afternoon session thanks to a fluke on red.

Selby, who last won the World Championship in 2021, was imperious in the evening session, wrapping up the final three frames with the minimum of fuss.

“I missed a few easy balls and it turned into a bit of a nightmare,” the Welshman said.

“I wasn’t nervous or anything coming here, but I missed a few balls and in this venue it can get on top of you. You just want to sneak off out of there, but you have got to stay and keep going through it.

“Playing someone like Mark, a Crucible specialist, one of the best players ever, you need to settle down early and if you don’t, what happened happens.

“I felt good in qualifying last week but that was a week ago, I could’ve done with my match being Saturday or Sunday and I felt I had completely lost it in the last week. I’m going to go back and start practising really hard.

“My life away from the game has been a bit of a mess at times, my practice has been pretty bad in the last five or six years and when I got to the world final it was a bit of a miracle, I’ve been kind of winging it.”

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