Well here we are in the morning after the night before and as the dust settles on another world championship ,I'd like to share a few thoughts on the last fortnight.
Mark Selby
There really is only one place to start and that is with the now four time world champion, Mark Selby.
After his defeat to Ronnie here in last years semi final, you just started to wonder was his chance of another world title gone, but helped by coach Chris Henry, he has had a solid season and came to Sheffield as maybe one of four players with a realistic chance of lifting the title.
Once here the standard of matchplay he produced was simply awesome.He controlled matches from the outset with a mixture of dogged safety & brilliant break building. In that form he is nearly impossible to play against and so it proved here as some of the games most fluent break builders fell under his spell.The more the tournament went on, the greater the sense of inevitability of a Selby victory became. Its not the prettiest to watch at times, but boy is it effective.
Shaun Murphy
I couldn't write this piece without also mentioning our gallant runner up. This has been a tough year for everyone,but particularly in snooker terms for Shaun who is now based in Dublin. This meant for him a constant stream of flights,covid tests and self quarantining when he got home.Understandably on the back of that he has not had a great season,but he certainly made up for that here. He dispatched Trump in the quarter finals, produced a stunning fight back to beat Wilson in the semi final & fought all the way to the end in last nights thrilling final.Shaun has always been one if the games true talents and it was nice to see that old confident stomp around the table again.
Rest of "The Big 4"
The other members of the games current "Big 4" all failed to get out of the two table set up.
First to go in the second round was our defending champion.Ronnie had come here on the back of a strange season for him,that saw him reach five ranking finals and lose them all.Here he had started to show flashes of form.but after a terrible second session against McGill. his comeback fell just short in a decider. Such are the margins in this game though that, but for the kick on that red to the middle in that decider, he could well have defended his title.The good thing to hear after the game was his desire to dedicate himself to working with Steve Peters again.
Judd Trump & Neil Robertson both went out in the last 8. Trump has been the games dominant player since he lifted the title here in 2019,winning trophy after trophy, but has failed to replicate that dominance in the "Tripe Crown" events. He never really looked at ease here and although he fought hard against Murphy,his overall performance seemed a bit jaded. I think going forward he needs to start building his season around peaking at the right times.
That looked to be exactly what Neal Robertson had done after his little sabbatical earlier this year. He came back to impressively win the Tour Championship & many thought the 2010 champion was set to make make a long overdue run at the title again. This was not to be though,as the old demons came back to haunt him against Wilson in the quarter final.It just seems Robertson is simply not a player suited by the Crucible & it may be the case that his one world title there was an even greater achievement because of that.
The Nearly Man
Kyren Wilson,started this tournament with the aim of going one better than he managed last year when he was runner up to Ronnie. but once again he was to flatter to deceive.He started slowly, but then produced a superb performance in beating Robertson & had a great first half to his semi final with Murphy.As we've seen with him in the past though, when the pressure comes on in the truly big games, he just seems to have a bit of a glass chin.His post match comments about Murphy's fist pumping celebration were a bit silly and can be put down to his disappointment at falling short again.On the plus side for him, his cueball control has visibly improved this season & with his age profile, time is on his side.
The Young Guns?
Its a statement of where the game is at the moment ,that when we talk of the games young talent, the names mentioned are lads hovering around the 30yrs old mark. Apart from them ,we of course have Masters champ Yan Bingtao (20), but although he came here with the chance of becoming the youngest ever champion, that never really looked on the cards.There seems to be a real dearth of talent in the younger ranks or if the talent is there, it hasn't stepped up to the mark yet. The average age of the semi finalists this year was 37 , in 2001 it was 26. Regardless of how good the older players are, this is not sustainable long term for the sport.We need kids to be writing to Santa for snooker cues & 6ft tables again!
Judds Comments
In the week before the championship ,Judd caused a bit of a stir with his "State of the Nation" interview with Phil Haigh. Among the points he made was a reference to the need for change in the way the sport is presented. It was to his credit then, that when he was knocked out, he put his money where his mouth was & joined his great friend Jack Lisowski as part of the BBC team. They both added immensely to the coverage & pairing them with the more experienced members of the team really helped them settle. That said I wouldn't be putting any of our old friends out to grass just yet. It wouldn't be the same without JV shouting at the cueball would it?
Calendar of event 21/22?
After the year we have had, it was certainly a nice novelty to have crowds here these last 17 days,but what shape will the calendar take for nxt season? With the vaccination programme going well & as long as we see no new resistant variants of the virus, its possible we could see a normal enough programme within the UK, but I wouldn't be at all sure about events in Europe & I'd have serious doubts about events in China. I suppose its a matter of waiting to see what the coming months bring. We always have MIlton Keynes!!
Finally, lets talk once more about our champion. There can't be any question now that Selby doesn't rank among the greats,but were on that list would you place him? The fun game here on social media is to watch the various generations try to discredit what they didn't see, be it the Davis ,Hendry or even Ronnie era! Personally & this is only my opinion, I'd now put him in a group alongside Mark Williams, just behind the sports "Mt Rushmore" of Davis ,O'Sullivan,Hendry & Higgins. I'm sure plenty will disagree!!
Anyway hope ye all enjoyed the 17 days of snooker escapism that this tournament brought us. Heres to next season, it'll be here before we know it!!
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