Another One! English Open Final 2020 – Shorts Thoughts

It’s another season and another Judd Trump/Neil Robertson final. I wonder how many more of these will be contested this season? Not that I’m complaining in any way. In fact, it’s well documented how much I relish the chance to watch a head-to-head such as this one. On this occasion, both men fight for the chance to become the first player to win three Home Nations events.

Breakdown

The proceedings initiated with Trump establishing a 3-1 lead, aided by a couple of 40+ breaks as well as requiring a few attempts to really clinch a frame. It wasn’t the vintage start that we were used to expecting from either player. Nevertheless, Robertson hit back in a more ‘business as usual’ manner as he reeled off the next three frames with breaks of 75, 128 and 61. Trump found himself struggling at this point but he was able to manage a 51 break (thanks to a useful snooker behind the brown) to level the playing field going into the evening session.

Robertson continued this swing of momentum as he secured the first three frames of the evening, one of which included a 114 break. Trump wasn’t able to get into his typical rhythm, as evident by his making a 52 in Frame 10 and missing a black to allow Robertson to steal. However, this seemed to have rubbed off a little bit on Robertson since despite having a 7-4 lead, whether he saw the finish line too early or suffered a dip in form, allowed Trump to come back.

Trump took Frame 12 with a break of 76 and was able to win four frames to reverse his deficit into an 8-7 lead. Robertson had chances to get within one frame of victory, but he couldn’t turn the screw. This was shown in Frame 14 as he made a terrific pot to right centre to commence a 65 break, but was denied by the same pocket by some margin to allow Trump to steal the frame.

It wasn’t a straight shot to the finish line for Trump at this point. In a near perfect mirror of events, Robertson made a 125 off Trump’s break-off shot in the penultimate frame. However, Trump liked what he saw and thought he’d have a go at that, as he himself followed Robertson’s break-off shot with a 114 of his own to win the deciding frame and claim the English Open title.

Afterthoughts

While it may not have been a vintage performance by either player, they did display their spells of top-level skill as they were each able to reel off consecutive frames whilst including some centuries in the mix. It may not have topped their epic at the Champion of Champions last season, but it certainly provided audiences with a thrilling contest as whenever these two match-up, you really never know who’ll come out on top.

Robertson may not have gotten the ending he desired but he was able to come out as the star performer as he produced twelve centuries over the course of the week – miles ahead of anyone else. Not to mention this was done in a tournament which mostly consists of best-of-7s. Robertson is continuing to prove that his form hasn’t gone anywhere as he remains one of the worlds very best.

On the other hand, Trump has seemingly picked up after many feared following his drought since Gibraltar that he wouldn’t be able to live up to that same standard. It wasn’t his best tournament in terms of large breaks, but it was certainly one of his best when it comes to mettle. Trump was one frame away from being eliminated in his first three matches of the English Open, yet he was able to overturn each of these to storm to the final and amass his 18th ranking title. How many will he win this season?

What did you think of the English Open final?

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Mark Selby Owned The 2016/17 Season - Throwback

During the 2010s decade, Mark Selby sat atop the rankings for 7 years. One does not simply accomplish this by chance. Selby won 16 ranking titles that decade – more than any other player, and among these titles included 3 World Championships, 2 Masters and 2 UK Championships. If we had to choose a piece of that decade that belonged to Selby, it would certainly be 2014-17; and in 2016/17, Selby added his name to the history books in a couple of ways.

Selby eased into his first ranking title that season in late August, following a couple of early exits in the Riga Masters and World Open. Despite not being the greatest of starts for the man who just turned two-time World Champion, Selby managed to win his way to the Paul Hunter Classic with a 4-2 final victory over Tom Ford. This was still when the PHC was considered a ranking event, so for all intents and purposes, that’s ranking title number one.

The next ranking tournament that took place following the PHC takes us to Shanghai, where Selby would come up against recurring foe, Ding Junhui. Although Selby lost this final 10-6, it’s the only ranking final he has lost in the past six years. He hasn’t lost a single ranking final besides this one at Shanghai since winning his first world title in 2014. But that’s beside the point.

Nevertheless, Selby was able to exact revenge against Ding around one month later at the International Championship where he overwhelmed his opponent 10-1. In fact, no one besides Wenbo was able to challenge Selby throughout that event. Equally as impressive was Selby’s performance at the UK Championship another month later as he contested the final in a classic 10-7 against Ronnie O’Sullivan. Most may have seen the clip of the swerve shot played by O’Sullivan in various highlight videos. That was the match. This win landed Selby his tenth ranking title in total, and third for the season.

It would actually be a few months before we saw Selby again as he fell to a number of early exits in the tournaments that followed. However, he managed to bring out the guns when he needed them as we reach the final two events of the season: the China Open and World Championship. Many players like the China Open as it’s a test of form going into the World Championship immediately afterwards. And with a 10-8 victory over veteran, Mark Williams, Selby was buzzing with four ranking titles and a lot of confidence.

Then came Selby’s performance at the Worlds – which could arguably be considered as his best performance of all his wins. Unlike 2016, Selby wasn’t playing his B game that carried him to victory. He was on fire. Selby crushed his first three opponents, Fergal O’Brien, Xiao Guodong and Marco Fu. The former, who he was 8-0 up against, and the latter, who he won with a session to spare. His match against Fu also included his magnificent 143 break, which if you haven’t seen already, I highly recommend doing so.

The semi-final saw a repeat of the previous year’s final against Ding, as Selby was run very close for the first time in this tournament. Although a determined Ding was encouraged to fight back, it was Selby who prevailed as the winner with a 17-15 victory. However, his final match was where Selby truly showed true class and championship strength as he battled Crucible specialist, John Higgins from 10-4 down to win twelve out of the next fourteen frames and his third world title with a score of 18-14.

With this major victory, Selby had not only won his fifth ranking title of the season, equalling him with Ding and Hendry, but also won his third WSC in four years – something that hadn’t been done since the days of Davis and Hendry. What a way to win the 40th anniversary at the Crucible! At the time, we were all in wonder as to if we were going to see a continuation of WSC wins that matched the likes of Davis and Hendry. Although this wasn’t entirely the case, Selby was still able to win a further five ranking titles to close out the decade.

The main quality I admired about Selby during this season was his confidence as well as slight tuning of his game. His confidence and long potting both saw a spike as there weren’t many pots he was turning down, or even missing. He faced tough tests, all while being a target at No. 1 and showed the reason why he belonged there. Also, his claiming two of the three Triple Crowns that season.

As if anyone needed a reason to understand how Selby is an established Triple Crown champion, this season’s performance makes you look no further. Generally, when players win a Triple Crown, they don’t do particularly well in the events that surround the rest of the season. Selby performed in a manner comparable to Hendry, with three of his ranking final victories against the Class of ’92. And with nineteen ranking events to play for that season, Selby snatched just over a quarter of them. Selby was winning one of every five ranking events that took place in the 2016/17 season, and two of them were majors! So yeah, Selby owned the 2016/17 season.

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Snookers BEST 147?

It is the one you’re thinking of. No, not that one. That’s the one. While the 5:08 maximum break in 1997 is something truly special and easily the perfect break, the ‘best’ maximum has to be the one that has a bit of drama, as well as requires some creativity and problem solving on the table. Which is why I think many people, Ronnie O’Sullivan included, find themselves coming back to the 2008 World Championship.

The Professor of 147’s, Ronnie O’Sullivan, found himself against Mark Williams in the second round of the 2008 WSC. At this point in time, O’Sullivan was a two-time world champion and had made eight maximum breaks, tied alongside Stephen Hendry. O’Sullivan led Williams for the entirety of the match, but Williams was always on his heels. Although, O’Sullivan started to run away with the match at the end with a century and two 50+ breaks as he led 12-7.

Cuing well and feeling full of confidence, O’Sullivan sunk a long pot to leave himself a slightly tricky cut-back black. Using the reds on the table, he was able to pot the black while keeping himself in his comfort zone – on the high scoring end of the table. O’Sullivan’s cue action was in full effect and if anything, was striking too well as noted by commentator, Willie Thorne. Some of the earlier shots throughout the break were marginally overrun due to how fluently O’Sullivan was cuing.

It normally irks me whenever commentators prematurely narrate how many reds and blacks have been potted during the early stages of a break, but there was an air of inevitability about this circumstance that Dennis Taylor stated following the first black about O’Sullivan’s intentions to make the maximum. It was so apparent that even Willie Thorne had a slight chuckle before Taylor finished his sentence because he knew exactly what he was going to say. And how many times have we seen O’Sullivan close out a match with a 147? Many times.

While the reds were fairly split out to pick off as opposed to being in a tight cluster, work still needed to be done to solve this puzzle. A prime example of O’Sullivan’s exceptional snooker brain was when he came onto the sixth red. As mentioned by Thorne in commentary, instead of potting the obvious red to the left of the table, O’Sullivan elected to pot the red at the bottom of the pack to give himself room to negotiate a better split when cannoning into them. Which he then went on to do. It may not have looked like much, but this was an impressive display of snooker knowledge.

Another example of O’Sullivan’s supreme cuing was evident on the thirteenth red that he potted. It was an exquisite example of how little effort he put into striking the cue ball in order to get a tremendous reaction from the cue ball to screw it back that distance off the cushion for the next black. A terrific snooker shot. And then we all know what came next.

The reason we’re all here. The single shot that everyone comes back to whenever we hear the words ‘World Championship 2008 maximum break’. The red that was glued to the pink which was on everyone’s mind throughout the whole break. Because it had to somehow be dealt with. But no one expected it from this following shot. Virtually straight on the black with little-to-no angle to work with, O’Sullivan forcefully stunned the cue ball (with perhaps a trace of left), to bounce off the cushion in a vertical line to perfectly separate the pink and red.

There was no angle to follow through or screw back to the pink/red and O’Sullivan really had to ‘make’ this shot out of nothing. It was played with a bit of insurance in mind given the last red that was situated but O’Sullivan was cuing so incredibly well and was in the zone that he figured he had to go for it. The last thing that made this shot one for the ages was that if the cue ball had a fuller contact on the red, it would have stuck and the break likely would have been over. But it had the perfect quarter-ball contact. It was such a spectacular shot that it warranted a worthy reaction from the Crucible crowd and commentators.

A visible puff of the cheeks by O’Sullivan showed that the hard work was indeed done. And he now had to remain calm and collected as he pieced together the rest of the maximum break. A maximum break which would have earned him £157,000 – if Ali Carter didn’t happen to make one that same tournament. O’Sullivan himself has gone on to mention how this 147 is one of his favourites due to how well he was playing and dealing with the possibility of being banned for comments made earlier in the season. However, O’Sullivan gave authorities a reason to rethink their decisions with a display that only he can provide.

For me, the 2008 maximum is the ultimate showcase of sublime cuing, break-building, audience participation and a single shot that will remain in history. Every 147 is spectacular in its own right, but none still generate the buzz that this one does regardless of how many times I watch it. Many more maximums will be made as time goes on, but it will take a lot to get fans to forget about the 2008 WSC.

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Why Do Snooker Players Not Wear Pool Gloves?

Something that didn’t really occur to me until I saw Darren Morgan at the World Seniors Championship, was the very insignificant number of snooker players that choose to play with a glove on their bridge hand. It hasn’t been something that I had really thought about, but it’s very evident in the game of pool and not so much in its snooker counterpart. I wanted to find out the reasoning behind this and whether there was some fundamental factor between the games that result in such a difference in choice.

The first thing would be to gauge an understanding as to why a glove is necessary in the first place. The chief reason for wearing a glove is to combat the effects of a ‘sweaty’ bridge when playing without one. When playing, particularly for a lengthy period of time, the gap in the bridge where your cue lies can often become damp thus, increasing friction. As the cue tries to motion through the bridge, increased friction can deter the smooth movement in the cue action.

Now, this hinders a pool player more so than a snooker player due to the closed-loop bridge utilised by these individuals. The closed-loop, which involves the index finger and thumb forming a ring around the cue creates more of a surface for the cue to run against, which increases the chances of cuing through friction. Wearing a glove negates this impact as they often absorb the sweat and give a consistent running surface.

However, a damp bridge doesn’t mean that all pool players suffer from hyperhidrosis. General playing conditions in America involve players coping with higher humidity than perhaps snooker players, given most events taking place in the UK and Europe. Higher humidity will increase moisture and wearing a glove substantially reduces the effect that this would have.

Another considerable factor that differs between snooker and pool players is the type of cues that they use. Pool players for the most part use slightly thicker, maple cues while snooker players predominately use ash-made cues. The importance of this lies in the properties of each wood, where maple has a tendency to get dirtier quicker, requiring it to be cleaned more often.

So why don’t snooker players wear gloves? You’d think that there would be at least a few more players using this when playing the game. I think it mainly comes down to the culture of both sports. Snooker is more of a traditional game which rarely ever changes (look at the break-off shot as an example) whereas, pool doesn’t mind adding a few accessories to their arsenal.

Also, snooker players tend to look after their cues in a way that doesn’t require them to wear a glove. In matches you will often see players (when seated) looking after their cues, whether it’s filing down their tip or using the provided towel to wipe down the cue. The towel is where I feel one of the main distinction lies. You’ll often see Ronnie O’Sullivan wiping his hands or holding a warm mug between frames and this helps reduce the moisture in his hands, creating that smooth surface for cuing.

Lastly, I reckon that wearing a glove would create a surface that is too smooth for players to get accustomed to. This can lead to the cue unintentionally sliding too quickly within the bridge and even lead to a little deflection. Given that snooker players frequently care for their cues and sometimes even use chalk to reduce moisture on their hands (if needed), it is unnecessary for them to equip a glove as it would involve a readjustment to their existing technique.

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