Category: Snooker

The experiences of the world’s leading players are key to understanding snooker’s current unpredictability

Ostensibly, sport aims to answer one question: who is the best? Humans being humans, we naturally invest it with meaning beyond that – the teams we support are ours forever, a fixed part of our identity representing values and a way of life. We keep coming back because we have no choice.

Individual sports, though, are different, players necessarily transient, so what keeps us coming back is the competition itself. And for that reason, there is greater onus on it to provide a satisfying outcome: we want our world championships won by the best player in the world, and Kyren Wilson, snooker’s newly minted king – a terrific talent and worthy winner – is, on the face of it, no such thing.

• Welsh qualifier will face Kyren Wilson after shock run to final
• Jones hits back at beaten opponents’ complaints over his style

Jak Jones sealed his shock World Snooker Championship final place by beating Stuart Bingham 17-12 – and branded his beaten opponents “pathetic” for complaining about his playing style.

The world No 44 will face Kyren Wilson in the two-day final starting on Sunday after Wilson overcame David Gilbert 17-11. Both Bingham and Judd Trump, whom the Welshman beat in the last eight, implied that Jones’ frustrating tactics had affected their rhythm and ultimately contributed to their defeats.

A world championship move away from its storied home would have implications in south Yorkshire beyond snooker

Picture the scene. There is live sport on a big screen, and on the artificial grass deckchairs are laid out, with pints of lager flowing. It sounds like a scene from continental Europe during a major football tournament: but this is Sheffield city centre on a grey, murky Friday morning.

It is perhaps fitting that Tudor Square, the part of Sheffield where the Crucible Theatre is situated, is dubbed the “Heart of the City” on the tourist information around town. Because for two weeks every year, snooker and its most iconic venue is at the beating heart of Sheffield – for now, at least.

• Only remaining seed holds 14-10 advantage
• Stuart Bingham and Jak Jones level at 8-8

Kyren Wilson needs three more frames to reach a second World Snooker Championship final after opening up a 14-10 lead over David Gilbert. The pair were tied at 8-8 after the morning session but Wilson, the only seed left, won six of the eight frames in the evening to take a commanding lead.

It would have been virtually game over had Gilbert not won the final frame with a break of 101, but he goes into Saturday’s final session as a big underdog, with the winner to face Stuart Bingham or Jak Jones, who are locked together at 8-8.

• Bingham takes 3-0 lead but Welshman hits back to make it 4-4
• Kyren Wilson calls himself ‘a wally’ after missing chance of 147

There was little to pick between the last four in the World Snooker Championship, with Jak Jones fighting back to 4-4 in his semi-final against Stuart Bingham after Kyren Wilson and David Gilbert also battled to stalemate at the Crucible.

Wilson, the only seed left in the tournament, came from 3-2 and 4-3 down to go in level after the first session in Sheffield. But Jones produced an even braver comeback against the 2015 champion, recovering after a nervy and error-strewn start to turn a 3-0 deficit into parity by the end of the evening.

An act of decency is being hailed as the greatest sporting gesture ever. Politicians, business folk, celebrities – please take note

You may not be into snooker, dear reader. You may not be into sport at all. But really, this is not about sport. In losing yesterday to Stuart Bingham in the quarter-final of the World Snooker Championship, Ronnie O’Sullivan proved himself a contender for the world’s most sporting sports star. He may have lost, but in doing so he showed there are still standards in public life, and some people do care about doing the right thing. Not something we see often these days.

Here’s what happened. Yesterday afternoon, with Ronnie leading by six frames to five, he potted a black ball. When it was returned to its spot, it should have obstructed his next red ball, making it trickier for him to progress. But there was a tiny divot on the table, and the black ball wobbled ever so slightly from its spot, making access to the red simple. Ronnie wasn’t having any of it. He asked the ref time and again to replace the black to make it more difficult for him. But the black wasn’t having any of it either, and kept bobbling away.

White lost four finals to Stephen Hendry at the Crucible. Their meeting 30 years ago was the one that really got away

By Steven Pye for That 1980s Sports Blog

Monday, 2 May 1994. Stephen Hendry and Jimmy White are locked in a final-frame decider in the World Championship final. With White leading 37-24 and the table open, even the usually stoic Hendry is showing signs of concern. White bends down to tackle a black he would normally pot with his eyes closed.

It should have been his crowning glory, the moment White conquered his Everest. Instead it was the day the music died. A gasp echoed around the Crucible as White’s attempt at the black failed to threaten the pocket. All he could do was sit, wait and hope that Hendry would give him one more shot.

• Judd Trump beaten 13-9 by Jak Jones on day of shocks
• Gilbert 13-8 Maguire; Wilson 13-8 Higgins

Ronnie O’Sullivan and Judd Trump both crashed out of the World Snooker Championship on an extraordinary day of quarter-final action at the Crucible.

The two top-ranked players had been odds-on to set up a mouthwatering last-four clash but were dumped out by the qualifiers Stuart Bingham and Jak Jones respectively.

• O’Sullivan: ‘£600m for three years? I’d love that phone call’
• World No 1 level at 4-4 with Stuart Bingham in quarter-final

Ronnie O’Sullivan has joked he would “love to see” a LIV Golf-style breakaway in snooker – particularly if it meant being offered “£600m to play for three years”.

Leading players, including O’Sullivan, are understood to have been approached by Far East backers about the prospect of establishing a breakaway circuit to rival the World Snooker Tour (WST) from as early as next season.

• Higgins comes from 62 points behind in decider to win 13-12
• Ronnie O’Sullivan to face Stuart Bingham after beating Ryan Day

John Higgins summoned one of the great Crucible breaks to sink Mark Allen 13-12 and reach the quarter-finals for the 18th time in his career.

Coming to the table 62 points down in the decider, the four-times world champion played a nerveless double on a red to the middle, and later potted a red down the top cushion that Stephen Hendry, commentating on the BBC, called “one of the best shots I’ve ever seen”. Higgins then sank the colours to complete a dramatic 71 clearance to win the match.

• O’Sullivan leads Ryan Day 10-6 after two sessions of last-16 clash
• Maguire holds off late Murphy fightback to secure 13-9 victory

Ronnie O’Sullivan opened up a 10-6 lead over Ryan Day to move within three frames of another World Snooker Championship quarter-final appearance.

O’Sullivan, aiming for a record-breaking eighth Crucible success, built on a 5-3 first-session lead by making Day pay for a succession of missed chances.

• 2019 champion beats Tom Ford 13-7 and faces Jak Jones next
• Trump admits to struggling with conditions of Crucible table

Judd Trump has revealed he rejected offers to join a rival snooker tour after cruising into the quarter-finals of the world championship with a 13-7 win over Tom Ford at the Crucible.

Trump says he has no interest in the prospective LIV-style breakaway, which is understood to emanate from east Asia and requires a commitment to play in eight regular events plus a grand final in exchange for a six-figure sign-on fee.

• World No 3 says partying has its place as he faces John Higgins
• David Gilbert through and Judd Trump close to last-eight spot

Mark Allen is adamant partying still has its place as he continues his quest for a maiden world snooker title at the Crucible on Saturday.

The 38-year-old from Antrim launched a dramatic health drive that led him to shed more than six stone in the last two years, and has been rewarded by a handful of ranking titles and a surge to third in the world rankings – and potentially to No 1 at the end of this tournament.