World Championship. King Ronnie

Well he did it, Ronnie O’Sullivan last night removed the final  obstacle to him being hailed the greatest of all time, by equaling Stephen Hendry’s 7 world title haul.

Watching the championship last year as we entered the last wk there was a sense of inevitability about Selby winning the title. This time around that feeling was there for Ronnie from round1 ball 1 ,He had looked focused, determined & confident for much of the season, but here he just looked on a different level & if we’re honest, apart from an anxious afternoon session  yesterday, his progress to the title was as serene as he could wish for.

More about our champion later though. Here are a few other things I took away from the championship.

Our runner up Judd Trump can also feel rightly proud of his efforts here. It has been a difficult  season for Judd who, despite lifting two trophies, never reached the heights of recent seasons. Here we saw what a tough all round competitor he has become.A Summer with the cue put away for a while will do him a world of good & I expect him to come roaring back next season.By the way what a gracious interview after the final as well! 

Our defending champ Mark Selby fell in Rd2, but after his recent troubles he can be rightly proud of his defense. Hopefully he’s back to his best next season. The rest of the old “class of ‘92” did themselves proud as well reaching the semi finals with Higgins showing his usual battling qualities & Mark Williams playing superbly throughout the tournament before falling to Trump in a decider. As for the pre tournament favourite Neil Robertson, I think we just have to accept he’s not going to be the multiple world champion his talents deserve. Of our younger stars , Zhao Xintong showed he still has a bit to learn over the longer distance, but Yan Bingtao looks like a champion in waiting, with a style that just seems to be tailor made forThe Crucible. He’s going to be a handful here for many years to come. 

   

After all the stories during the season the topic of the world championship continuing here past the end of its current  contract in 2027 was always going to be a subject of debate.The BBC did a piece which included a few desenting voices, but I think on the whole after the last 17 days the feeling is that we should never leave here. Even Judd changed his mind on it!! 

 

I found the coverage overall to be excellent.Hazel again cemented her place at the top of tree when it comes to sports broadcasting & the BBC team as a whole were really good , with Jack & Joe continuing to get better all the time.”JV” was also at the top of his game in the commentary box. He really will be irreplaceable when his time ends.

I didn’t see as much of Eurosport’s coverage, but Jimmy & Alan are always worth listening to & Radzi is settling into his position better all the time. Rachel was also as great as ever when tasked with the unenviable job of interviewing the losers.

Finally though let’s return to our champion.The one thing every sport fan realizes as they go through life is that every record can be broken & feats that seemed at their time like they’d last forever are often bettered far quicker than we expected. That said though I think with  Ronnie we have an exception to all those rules. Not only is he the winning most player the games ever had, he has achieved this status while simultaneously being the face of his sport & its most beloved character.On top of all this he has done it all with a style & natural flare that the rest of us can only dream of. He is an absolute one off & I think the greatest genius sport in general  has ever seen. Long may he reign.

World Championship Preview

Those of us who remember Question Of Sport back in the David Coleman days will recall the viewers , "answers on a postcard please", Mystery Guest competition.These were basically a series of sports stars with their faces hidden doing ordinary everyday tasks & you had to guess who they were.These clips were always accompanied by an old Johnny Nash song that included the lyrics "There are more question than answers & the more I find out the less I know". As I started trying to write this preview piece & the more I drilled down into the likely contenders, the more this song started to play around in my head.

The obvious favourite on from this season is Neil Robertson, but you just can't ignore his record here since his victory in 2010. I can think of at least five championships since then  where he has looked the likely winner in week one, only to bow out when things start to heat up. When thinking of Neil , I often think of the great horse Desert Orchid. In his day "Dessie" as he was affectionately known by the racing public, was  an equine superstar who transcended to sport.Grey horses always look more spectacular anyway, but he had the brilliance to go with it. The only problem was he also had a tendency to jump slightly right at his fences, so on a left handed track, this cost him ground every time. Now for non racing people The Cheltenham festival is "The Crucible" of horse racing, but unfortunately for Dessie it was also a left handed track. Every year he would win multiple races, arrive at Cheltenham as a favourite & and on all but one glorious occasion leave empty handed.It could just be the case that Neil is not suited by the venue and is destined to always come up short.

While on the "horses for courses" theme, there is noone who seems more suited to the Crucible marathon than the defending champion Mark Selby. Last year he looked the winner from a long way out & just seemed to be have that ability to control his matches.. This year however has been a very difficult year for him. After defeat at The Masters, he revealed he has been battling with his mental health. After that he tried his best to plough on, but still struggling on the table, he withdrew from a couple of events to focus on his recovery. The fact is we just don't know what Mark Selby  is going to show up on Saturday morning. All we can hope is that he is now in a good place mentally & that he gives his usual top notch performance.

If you had only seen two snooker matches this season & they were the Champion of Champions & Turkish Masters final, you would be going in strong on Judd Trump here ,but the fact is, those performances aside, he has looked a shadow of the player who has hoovered up titles the last few seasons. He talked after his defeat in the recent Tour Championship about been fed up with the game,so its hard to see how he can turn it around here

The old "Class of '92" have continued to defy father time & have all got titles to their name this season. In that Tour Championship Ronnie looked totally up for it, becoming the only player to record 5 centuries in back to back matches ,before being pipped by Robertson in the match of the year. He looks good,but  as ever with him here, the question is how he handles the bad sessions.. Higgins went on to reach that final ,his 6th final of the season, but as was the case earlier in the year, he got within one of the title only to falter..This was the most gut wrenching of them all as he lost 10-9 from  leading 9-4.Even for all the mental fortitude he has displayed in the past, its hard to see how he can recover from that to challenge for a 5th world title here. The other member of the trio Mark Williams continues to do it his way & you just never know what he could do ,but he'll have to be on it like he was in '18.

Elsewhere on peoples shortlist will be UK champion Zhao Xintong, who showed how good he is in York last December & then demolished Yan Bingtao in the German Masters final. The main question mark over him is lack of experience over the longer matches.This was evident in his loss to Higgins in the Tour Championship, but such is the rate of knots that he is learning at, you couldn't rule him out.Likewise his fellow countryman Yan Bingtao is maybe lacking in the experience over the longer matches, but seems to have the style of game that might just be suited by it.

Bearing in mind all of the above there are  others to consider, but they will need a strong tail wind to be holding the trophy come May 2nd & like those named previously, they all have their own issues to overcome, Kyren Wilson has had a mediocre season really, but has shown a liking for the the venue previously,.Barry Hawkins, has had some superb performances here in the past ,but can he really be considered a contender now? Shaun Murphy got within three frames of the title last year ,but has been dogged by injury this season & Mark Allen has been a bit hit & miss since he won the Northern Ireland Open. 

So there you go.As I said at the outset, there are so many question marks coming in here & at time of writing we don't even know the survivors from the qualifiers yet.I mean the one world final that Ding reached was after coming through the qualifiers. If her were to do it again could you really rule him out??

However though if I was to stick my neck out , I just have a feeling that we might have a record equalling 7th world title for Ronnie , but don't hold me to that!!!!

 

World Champion 2022? A look at the contenders two months out.

 Two months from today, on April 16th, all eyes will turn to The Crucible theatre in Sheffield, as the curtain is raised on 17 days of  snooker drama, that in the end will crown the 2022 world champion.

So with this much of the season played, what have we learnt so far? ,who are the real contenders? & who are the potential dark horses?

Well at this stage, the man undoubtedly at the top of most peoples list is our most recent title winner , Neil Robertson. That win was Neil's third success of what has been a disrupted season for him, but it'd be a brave man to say that'll be his last. He just looks at the moment like someone completely at ease with his game, but in assessing his chances this year, can we really discount his Crucible campaigns of the last decade? Time & time again over that time, Neil has got to the Crucible as one of the favourites, but after flattering to deceive in the first week, he has fallen apart in week two. The reasons for this seem to be as much a mystery to him as the rest of us, but if I was to give him my cents on the problem, I'm of the opinion that he tends to slip into overthinking mode & the further he gets into the tournament, the more in his mind it becomes about trying not to lose, rather than pushing on to win. I actually think this was the same the year he won it, but the difference that time was we ended up with a last four who were all of that mindset & he managed to be last man standing. Unless he can address this issue ,I fear we'll see him get bogged down again & be left scratching his head as to how history has repeated itself.

The favourite still in many bookies lists is Judd Trump, but this can only be based on his efforts over the last few seasons, not on anything we've seen this year & certainly not on his Crucible record. Despite winning the Champion of Champions earlier in the season, I'm struggling to think of the last time we saw Judd play at his absolute best. A few times this season he's looked like he may be ready to catch fire ,but it just hasn't happened yet. It could well be, that despite his protestations that he see's every tournament the same, he has geared his season this time around peaking for Sheffield & we'll see a new Judd over the next few tournaments, but we're going to have to, if he's add to his world title tally.

If the above two mentioned have questionable Crucible records to overcome,  that certainly couldn't be said of our defending champion Mark Selby, who seems to have a game & temperament tailor made for the Crucible.He simply dominated the tournament last year & looked the likely winner from a day one.This season has of course been very different for him & his brave decision to go public with his mental health struggles has helped shine a light on a problem that frankly needs more public understanding. We all hope the help he is now receiving will see him get back to good place mentally. This year for him that'll be the priority, but needless to say if that  were to happen by the Crucible, he would again be a hard man to beat.

Elsewhere the "Class of '92" continue to defy father time & all three have again lifted titles this season. At times they have all produced fabulous snooker, but have each on occasion struggled to back up a good performance again in the next match. Now there are two schools of thought as to how this would play out in a multi session match.The first is, no matter how long the match, one bad session can end you. I'm of the second school of thought, that see's this an advantage, but only if you have the ringcraft to limit the damage. If you can make your bad session a 5-3 or 4-4 instead of a 6-1 or 7-1,then you can certainly turn any game around. These great champions certainly fall in to that category.

At the other end of the scale we have the young pretenders.. Zhou Xintong , Yan Bingtao, Hossein Vafaei & Luca Brecel, have all been flying the flag for the twentysomethings  & have all now established themselves as top players. The question is are any of them yet ready for the "marathon of the mind" that is the Crucible. At this stage you would have to say that Yan is potentially the best suited, with a steady temperament & willingness to get down & dirty in matches, but such is the exuberance of the other three, you could certainly see them make waves even if in the end they were to ultimately fall short this time.Their day is not far away though.

Elsewhere there a few I'd put into the "needing every light to be green" category. These would be players like Barry Hawkins, who has played superbly in reaching two finals in the last month, only to run into Robertson on each occasion & that in a nutshell has always been Barry's problem at the Crucible.He has beaten the biggest names in the sport there, but still fallen short in the final shake up. Mark Allen is another who is capable of anything & with his legal problems seemingly behind I fancy him to challenge for another trophy before the seasons end, but I just don't see it being the world crown. Also here I'd put Shaun Murphy, after all, he fell only a few frames short of the title last year, but has been blighted by injury this term. If the coming months see him find some form,he could make another bold bid to add to his 2005 success. Another often touted for Crucible success is Kyren Wilson, but he has produced little this season to suggest that this will be his year either.

Two months is a long time in snooker terms & a lot could change between now & the Crucible, but at this stage if i was to be pushed of a prediction, I just have a feeling we could be toasting a member of the "class of '92"again. Now which one,,,,,,,,,,,,,

The Masters 2022 - A few takeaways from the week

 Neil Robertson last night claimed his second Masters title with a 10-4 victory over Barry Hawkins in front of another packed house at the Alexandra Palace. In truth the final itself was a bit of a damp squib, but that in no way takes away from what was another fabulous week of drama on the green baize. 

So here are some of my takeaways from the week.

1. In the days following Zhao's victory in the UK Championship & then Brecel's victory in the Scottish Open, many were quick to jump on the bandwagon that we were now seeing a changing of the guard. What we saw here was, that for all the talent they undoubtedly possess, these young guns have a bit to go to match the ring craft of the old guard just yet. Both Yan & Zhou were out played & out thought by Williams & Higgins respectively.There is no disgrace in that & they both strike me as the type of people who will learn from the experience.The point is that anyone who thought these great champ would now disappear gently into the good night, were maybe jumping the gun a bit.

2. Judd Trump's quest for another Triple Crown title fell short again with his 6-5 defeat to Barry Hawkins in the semi final. As I said before, I think its inevitable he will top Ronnie's ranking title haul & he should be the first player to reach the 2000 century mark, but unless his record improves in these events, he will never take his place among the real greats of the sport. that said I think there were some real flashes this week of the Judd of the last few seasons emerging again.I have a feeling we wont be waiting too long to see him with another trophy., but its what he does at The Crucible, that will define his season.

3. It was surprising to see us all to see how badly Mark Selby was playing on Friday evening & unfortunately the answer cut more deeply than it being a simple bad night at the office.On Saturday,he revealed on twitter that he is currently struggling with his mental health & is now seeking the help he requires to get him through these troubles. This was an extraordinarily brave thing for him to do & all we can do is wish him the very best.He hopefully takes great encouragement from the outpouring of support he received following the tweet. Thankfully we are now living in a time where peoples understanding of mental health issues are growing all the time.None of us are immune & seeing people like Mark standing up in this way may encourage others to seek the help they need also.

4. We heard endless commentary on the atmosphere at the Ally  Pally this week & for the most part it was excellent, but lets be honest, there were also times when things really threatened to get out of hand. The fact that these incidents mostly happened in the evening session is probably no coincidence. This is where the refs need to be aided by strong stewarding & some chucking out if necessary. I don't know what it was like there, but it certainly made for some uncomfortable viewing.This is not a road we want to see the sport slip down. Maybe in future Rob could tone down the hyping up of the crowd a bit for the evening sessions & this also applies to whoever is in charge of the music that is pumped in between frames. We have a great sport that is built on respect at every level, lets not let that be ruined by a few idiots.

5. I posted a tweet during the week about what a wonderful job John Virgo was doing in the commentary box & the massive positive reaction I got, yet again showed what an unforgivable mistake it would be for the BBC to drop him at the end of the season. "JV"brings something extra to a commentary that just isn't there with anyone else across all snooker broadcasting. Good and all as Stephen Hendry is, its particularly noticeable  how much his standard improves when he is alongside Virgo. This is what the best do in any sphere, they raise the performance of those around them. Hopefully the powers that be reconsider. They got it wrong a number of years ago when they prematurely benched Clive Everton. Hopefully lightening doesn't strike twice.     

6. Finally though lets salute our champion once again. This was Robertson sixth Triple Crown title & that total only really starts to reflect what wonderful player he is.Its probably fair to say he wasn't at his absolute best this week & really should have gone out to Williams in that epic semi final, but yesterday, when the chance came, he powered through the finish line like all great champions do. This win was bridging a 10 year gap since his first Masters title & he'll be hoping it can be the catalyst to him filling in that other great omission on his cv, another world title to go with is  2010 crown. For now though lets all rise for one of sports greatest ambassadors.

UK Championship A Round Up

Zhao Xintong last night announced himself as one of the stars of our sport, with a superb 10-5 victory over Luca Brecel to claim the 2021 UK Championship title.

Zhao has been on the radar of those in the game for a long time & long flagged as one of the most talented players we've ever seen, but his career has not been plain sailing to this point. Just three years ago he fell off the tour, but bounced straight back on through Q School. Since then he's done ok ,but to this week, hadn't really been pulling up any trees.That all changed here though, as he produced a series of stunning performances on his way to the title.

For all the long potting, which was unbelievable by the way, it was also his style of play around the table that got people excited.He hits the ball so crisply, seeming to get maximum cueball control from little effort. It was said many times last week & I agree with it, that to watch him is reminiscent of watching a young Jimmy White. Perhaps though the most impressive thing of the lot was his ability to power through the finish line in his matches showing no fear of success. This above all else may be the thing that elevates him to the very top of the game.

This may also prove to be a big week in the career of Luca Brecel. His performance to beat Kyren Wilson in the semi final was snooker as well as it can be played. Luca has been around a while now and everyone knows how good he is, but if he's had one fault over the years , it has been in the shot selection department. The old adage that 90% of the game is playing the right shot is as true at the top of the game as it is down the club for a league match on a Tuesday night. It was good to hear him say in interviews this week that he is making a conscious effort this season to address this failing. That can only stand him in good stead for the future.

The joy and excitement we saw over the weekend was a far cry from the controversial early days of the tournament.The whole  "amateurgate" controversy after Shaun Murphys comments overshadowed the early days & without getting in to it, I think Murphy will be the first to accept it was not the time to bring it all up. Worse still was Neil Robertson, who created the ultimate rod for his own back ,by weighing in to the debate before his match up with the "amateur" John Astley. Whether this has any bearing on the match we'll never know, but I'd say if he had his time again , he'd have kept his mouth shut.

The other great online debate of the early days came following the failure once again of Judd Trump to make a showing in a Triple Crown event. Its now 10 years since he won his only UK title & his record in the big ones is in sharp contrast to the other events on tour that he regularly hoovers up.The question is can he be considered a true great if his record doesn't improve in these events? Well of course the first thing to say is, it still can improve, he still has many years to go before we're assessing his ultimate place on the all time list, but for me ,even if as I expect, he becomes the first player to top 50 ranking titles , unless his Triple crown record improves, he wont be challenging the sports "Mt Rushmore".

The old "class of '92" all failed to reach the weekend ,with Willaims , still suffering the after effects of Covid, going out to Hamilton, Higgins falling in a decider to Zhao & Ronnie losing out in another decider to Kyren Wilson in the last 8.  World champion Mark Selby also failed to make an impact, losing out to another young star in Hossein Vafaei.

On the back of all this ,there will be those who will suggest that we have now seen a changing of the guard in the sport, but such talk is certainly a bit premature. The current big names haven't gone away & they will be chomping at the bit to get back in ring, starting at this weeks Scottish Open. The one thing we did see yesterday & it was particularly apparent on social media, was a genuine excitement about the final. There is a feeling watching the triumph of Zhao Xintong, that we are getting in on the ground floor of what could be a glittering career. The future all of a sudden looks very bright.

Damned Lies & Snooker Statistics

 A number of years ago The Racing Post published a table that showed the win/loss percentages of the top jockeys in photo finishes,where the margin was a short head. At this time Tony McCoy was the biggest name in the sport, "the punters pal" who,when it came to the small margins, could be relied upon above all others to galvanise every last effort from his mount. However in this study his record was a distant second to Mick Fitzgerald.This provoked a lot of discussion in racing circles at the time,as a indisputable truth held by many,had now been proven to be wrong or had it? Taken in isolation the figures don't lie,but what a percentage written on a page couldn't quantify is the number of times that the genius of McCoy got a horse to within a short head of victory, when others would have trailed in way behind.In actual fact he was  being a victim of his own success.

A love of stats has been a growing phenomenon in most sports in recent times with the easy access we all have to information at our fingertips,to a large degree this is a good thing,but we need to be careful what we gleam from them. 

For a recent example ,take John Higgins. At the weekend he lost his third final in the space of the last five weeks. If this was another pro with no titles to his name & he kept losing finals, you could probably point to his lack of bottle & question if he really was the top player, but with John,as when he lost those three world finals in a row in recent years,instead of looking at these as negatives ,these defeats can be looked at as proof of just how good Higgins still is.In each of these events, there were numerous times when lesser players would have gone out, but the fighting spirit that John has shown throughout his career kept coming to the fore  & although he ultimately ran out of steam in each of the finals, his efforts in getting their should only enhance his reputation instead of diminishing it. The lesson here is that life is more complicated than the final score.

The same can be said for the century break. These are another bunch of numbers loved by the stats boys who obsess over the amount made by individuals in  their careers or the amount made in a particular tournament or indeed season. Last week we saw Neil Robertson reach the milestone of 800 career centuries,while Mark Selby recorded his 700th. Laudable personal achievements these may be, should these modern records been used as sticks with which to beat those of previous generations? Yes the modern game produces a lot more century breaks than we saw 20/30 years ago,but to say this is purely down to a higher standard is over simplifying things & again speaks of a failure to look behind the numbers.

 The game I started watching in the 80's is very different to what we see today, with heavier clothes & snooker balls making a lot of the shots we see as standard today impossible to play back then. Hendry is credited with pioneering the shot off the blue to break open the pack in 90's, but the fact is that this shot was not possible before then, or to put it a better way, it was not a percentage play with the force needed to achieve it on slower tables. 

Percentage snooker was the approach of  the vast majority back then ,with a century break only something to be pursued if the opportunity arose once the frame was safely in the bag .At the other end of that spectrum you had the likes of Alex Higgins, who went in to full exhibition mode once the frame was secured. Does anyone who saw Alex at his best really think 87 official career centuries is any barometer of his status in the game compared to the monster totals we see now? or for that matter, is it any measure of  Ray Reardon with his  total of 53?

OK you may shout, if centuries are not the infallible way to judge greatness,surely there is no disputing total ranking titles as the ultimate measure of success? Well yes and no. A look at the current leaderboard of ranking titles certainly  seems to back up that thesis ,with the top four places occupied by O'Sullivan 37, Hendry 36, Higgins 31 & Davis 28. The problems start yet again when you start to delve deeper. Yes Steve Davis has 28,but he had far fewer ranking tournaments to play in in his prime than the others have had & indeed his first two UK Championship finals weren't even ranking events.Even when we get to the Hendry era, though the number did increase, it was nowhere near where it has been in over the past decade.

So if century breaks & ranking titles won aren't reliable, then what is?Well now we get to the real problem,because the answer is no statistic taken in isolation is. I was a life long Steve Davis supporter so in the above paragraph I stated some facts about numbers that supported my argument for his place at the top table. if I was a Hendry fan, I'd point to his 7 world titles as the ultimate accolade in the game, a Ronnie fan, will say look  his Triple Crown record and longevity in the sport, in the next decade when Trump inevitably breaks the ranking title & century records ,his fans will no doubt hail him as well.Likewise many will read my above comparisons with the century breaks & see my argument to be me just looking at the past through rose tinted glasses.

The trick for us all is to enjoy what we are watching, remember the special nights& milestones we witness & to try not fall too far down the stats rabbit hole.As Homer Simpson said "People can come up with statistics to prove anything, 40% of all people know that"

 

    

A Storm in a T-Shirt

 One of the great myths in sport is the story of the great wave of new fans who are only waiting to start watching, if only we change X,Y,Z. Maybe its a case with all minority sports, but the two I follow most closely, namely snooker & horse racing, both seem to be becoming ever more obsessed with  subscribing to this falsehood. Watching British racing from afar, this has lead to a situation where the sport has actually started to slowly eat itself from the inside. Thankfully in snooker we haven't quite reached that level of self-flagellation yet,but after reading some of the comments surrounding the sport in recent times, we can't get too complacent. 

Over the last few months it seems everyone in the sport is coming forward with idea's as to what we need to do to open the floodgates to these vast numbers of new fans who are only waiting to come aboard. These have varied from shorter matches, to newer commentators, to shorter matches at the world championship,to a different venue for the world championship & most persistently a change to the dress code, which brings us to this weeks Champion of Champions event in ITV4.

Hinted at in recent weeks & unveiled over the weekend, this matchroom promoted event will see the player don black shiny polo shirts, with their name on the back as well as their nicknames.In a word, these look awful. Since its revival in in 2013 ,The Champion of Champions has quickly established itself as one of the games most prestigious events, but these changes make it look almost tacky.

This is not to say I'm against everything that isn't a waistcoat & bow-tie , I think the open neck black shirts the use for Home Nations events are casual without looking scruffy & the named polo shirts they wear in the shoot out suit that event,

 My real question here is to what purpose are these been changes made? If its it to give the event its own separate identity, then it might achieve that (,but not in the way they hope).it could also be designed to catch the eye of the casual punter flicking through the channels by looking less formal . or it may even be a marketing ploy that hopes to see young snooker fans going online to buy replicas of their favourite players.Whatever the thinking behind it, for me it misses the mark.

Apparently Judd Trump was part of the consultation process on this, Judd has been one of the most vocal of the sport participants when it had come to airing his views on things in the sport over the last year & whereas I would disagree with him in almost everything he has suggested, I do accept its all coming from a good place & a genuine desire to to see the sport grow.As far as I'm concerned though ,both he & the governing body are barking up the wrong tree with this. 

The irony is, for all we hear about the stuffy old formal wear turning people away from the sport, I have seen in my own club on many occasions the excitement & pride on the faces of the junior members when they are fitted for their club waistcoats for the first time.They see it as snooker uniform & something to work towards. I don't think a shiny club polo shirt would carry the same gravitas.

Ultimately of course this week will be judged & remembered by what we see on the table ,not by what the players are wearing, but we can't get complacent about what makes our sport so special. If we go too far down the road of dumbing it down, we not only run the risk of not attracting new fans,but also alienating the ones we already have.