Old Snooker Tournaments I Hope Return

Throughout the decades, we have seen many snooker events, both ranking and otherwise, come and go as the game has evolved. Certain events such as the Grand Prix, or various ‘Opens’ have undergone revisions and re-brandings, while others have been discontinued completely. Out of the many events that are no longer on the calendar, I’ve picked a few which I wouldn’t mind seeing return at some point in the future.

Dubai Classic/Masters

Run primarily in the late 1980s and a majority of the 1990s, the Dubai Classic was the only real snooker tournament that took place in the Middle East. It was a location and tournament remembered by many players, including Hendry and O’Sullivan due to the hospitality of the venue. With a distinct lack of tournaments held in the Middle East, there is an opportunity to bring money as well as a unique desert backdrop to a potential revival of this event.

Pontins Professional

This was a tournament which ran in Wales from 1974-2000 and mainly took place after the World Championship. Players would often use this invitational tournament as a way to supplement their income from competition. It doesn’t necessarily need to be this specific event, but I think an exhibition-like tournament such as Pontins would be a great way to close out a season, particularly after a tough grind at the Crucible.

World Doubles Championship

This variant edition of snooker was run throughout the 1980s which offered an alternative to the traditional game that viewers were used to watching. This event was dominated by Steve Davis and partner, Tony Meo as they won four out of the six iterations. Even though we have the World Cup, it would be nice to see an exhibition return of this tournament with a more unique ruleset or mixed doubles concept (male, female or professional, amateur).

Charity Challenge

Most notably known for Hendry’s deciding frame 147 against O’Sullivan, the Charity Challenge brought a refreshing motivation for players during the late 1990s. It was an event in which the prize money won by players would be donated to the charities of their choice. Despite not offering any ranking rewards for players, it would be great to include a tournament that solely focuses on the charitable contributions that could be generated.

More Internationals

What I mean by this is if you look through the 1980-90s, you’ll see snooker tournaments held in incredible locations that you wouldn’t see nowadays. Many countries hosted their own ‘Masters’ events, including the likes of Singapore, Finland, Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong etc. I would love to see snooker reach more of these locations but the difficulties with this in the current, packed game is understandable. Perhaps a dedicated series of tours can return to aid with this but for the moment, one can only hope.

What do you think? Which tournaments do you miss and would like to see return one day? Let me know either in the comments or using the socials below!

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Snooker: The Crucible Curse

And so, another season goes by as we fail to see a maiden champion break the ever elusive ‘Crucible Curse’. While it might seem like a phrase that’s been overused and run into the ground, the proof is in the pudding as we all must continue to wait and see if the magical forces that surround this phenomenon ever allow a first-time winner to see the light of day.

For those unaware or new to snooker, the Crucible Curse refers to the occurrence of a first-time World Champion being unable to successfully defend their position in the following year. This dates back to the beginnings of the Crucible in 1977, where only two individuals out of the twenty-one WSC winners were able to make the successive final.

The first of those individuals was the surprise champion of 1986, Joe Johnson, who beat Steve Davis 18-12 to lift the trophy. Unbeknownst to Johnson, who was just hoping to progress past the first round due to a poor season following his WSC win, he became the closest to ever break the Crucible Curse as he reached the final once again where Davis exacted his revenge with an 18-14 victory.

No one would ever come closer than Johnson. Yet. The second player to come close was 1997 champion, Ken Doherty who performed very well to disrupt Stephen Hendry’s string of consecutive world titles in the 1990s. Despite reaching the finals once again with victories over Stephen Lee, Matthew Stevens and Mark Williams, a very talented John Higgins had something to say about the Crucible Curse as he pushed past Doherty by the same score-line he had won with the year prior.

Speaking of Higgins, how did the players that most consider among the all-time greats fare when it came to their attempts at the curse? Higgins and O’Sullivan both reached the semi-finals in their following WSCs but fell short against their budding opponents. O’Sullivan contested an epic against Hendry in 2002, while Higgins lost to Williams in 1999. On the other hand, Williams lost in the deciding frame against Joe Swail in 2001 to also fall victim to the Crucible Curse.

What about Davis? Actually, Davis succumbed to the Crucible Curse in one of the most shocking defeats of the 1980s, as he got hammered by Tony Knowles in the first round by a 10-1 score-line. This unexpected loss came off the back of an 18 month period of dominance, in which Davis had claimed the UK and Masters in that season hence, being denied the full Triple Crown. Davis did however deny three opponents from breaking the Crucible Curse through his 1980s supremacy.

That leaves Hendry – what happened there? Again, Hendry was hot coming off his best ever season in 1990/91 (click here to read about that) where he won five ranking titles that season and it didn’t seem like anything was going to stop him from winning the world title as well. Enter Steve James in the quarter-finals. Hendry was in the lead for most of this match at 11-9, until James reeled off four frames in a row to put a stop in Hendry’s tracks.

Oddly enough, maiden champions often don’t have the best track record when it comes to making it far in the following year. Whether it’s the pressure or the bizarre forces that surround this ‘curse’, it just seems to have its effect on those that come before it. Five of the first-time champions didn’t make it past round 1, while a total of thirteen didn’t make it past the quarter-finals. That means only 28% of first-time champions have made it to the one-table setup, cutting this number by more than half for those that reached the final.

As to whether the Crucible Curse will ever be broken…I honestly think that it will happen one day. I’m just not sure it will be anytime soon. And I think the player that accomplishes it might be on the tour right now, but just hasn’t hit their peak levels just yet. I reckon it’ll be someone that hasn’t reached a Triple Crown final in their careers so far, so we’ll still have some time to wait and see if we can stop mentioning the so-called Crucible Curse.

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Stephen Hendry Post 2000s Career

As Stephen Hendry returns to the green baize next season via an invitational card, I thought it’d be a good idea to look at one of his lesser talked about eras, and that’s his post-2000s career. While it significantly differed from his accolades of the previous decade, it’s still worth taking a look at some of the notables that occurred following his established period of dominance.

One of the first things to look at would be Hendry’s ranking title success following the turn of the decade. He reached twelve ranking finals from 2000, with his last venture to a final occurring in 2006. Of these twelve endeavours, Hendry managed to win four, taking his ranking tally from 32 to the acclaimed 36. This 33% success rate fell drastically from over 70% in the 1990s (32 wins from 45 finals), which highlights just how damaging Hendry was during this decade.

Another factor to consider, which branches off his ranking competition are his Triple Crown voyages. From 2000, Hendry reached two UK finals as well as a Masters and World Championship final. Most will remember his final frame deciding clash against Peter Ebdon in WSC 2002, which Hendry credits as his one of his most crushing defeats. However, Hendry would have another (and his last) Triple Crown contention against Ebdon in the 2006 final, where his opponent once again got the better of him.

Despite these efforts, it wouldn’t be fair to look at his finals alone. It would be more suitable to observe his Triple Crown consistency throughout the 2000s. If we look at his WSC journey post-2000, Hendry’s experience and competitiveness carried him through to numerous quarter-finals, including his year of retirement in 2012. This doesn’t include his two terrific semi-final efforts in 2004 and 2008. The same can be said about his UK and Masters attempts, although there was a failure to reach the latter stages of these events following the 2006/07 season.

One thing that never left Hendry was his ability to score and make century breaks. He was the leading century maker in the 1990s by a substantial margin (418 according to Cuetracker), and was still third on the list during the 2000s (257), only overtaken by O’Sullivan and Higgins. Considering how fewer frames Hendry played in the 2000s, the fact that he maintained a solid 7%+ frame per century rate (slightly improving his 1990s rate) just displays his scoring prowess.

Many have speculated and given their thoughts as to why Hendry didn’t accomplish as much as expected in the post-2000s. Those reasons mentioned aren’t the purpose for writing this, rather than to emphasise just how brilliant he was during the previous decade. So brilliant in fact, that anything less would seem like a failure in most people’s eyes.

O’Sullivan said following his sixth world title that he would perhaps rather have Hendry’s career in being able to dominate over a period. If you asked Hendry, he’d probably say the same. Whatever Hendry’s reasons are for returning to the circuit, he is welcomed by all as we hope to see some big breaks and clearances that make us feel thirty years younger. He only had a few days practice for the World Seniors due to lockdown and still made some significant breaks during the event.

Regardless, the King of the Crucible returns to the table once again. How do you think he will fare among the rest of the crowd?

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Ronnie O'Sullivan's Journey To His Sixth World Title

Ronnie O’Sullivan’s sixth world title definitely didn’t come to him without its challenges, or more specifically, its challengers. One could argue that out of his six World Championships, this past year proved to be the most difficult of his journeys to the trophy. If we look at his list of opponents during the 2020 WSC, we’ll quickly learn that his venture this year shouldn’t go unnoticed when matched with prior victories.

Round 1

This commenced with his first round match against Thepchaiya Un-Nooh. Despite the score-line, at first glance, O’Sullivan certainly could have had an easier/less experienced opponent to face off against. Not to mention, someone with a similar style and pacing as himself. Much like other sports, styles make matches and O’Sullivan tends to find himself challenged when playing someone similar to himself i.e. Judd Trump. Nevertheless, O’Sullivan capitalised on the mistakes of Un-Nooh to breeze to victory in what was the fastest Crucible match in history at 108 minutes (10-1 victory).

Round 2

The simple pots missed by Un-Nooh in Round 1 were patched by his second round opponent, Ding Junhui, who seemingly didn’t miss at all when amongst the balls. This provided O’Sullivan with his first real challenge of the championship, particularly as he lost to Ding in their last WSC encounter in 2017. Despite O’Sullivan making trivial errors, he was able to maintain a level playing field against Ding at 4-4 and 8-8, before running away with it in the final session. This was partly aided by Ding’s poor long potting success, often winning his frames off the mistakes of his opponent.

Quarter-Finals

However, the tides did turn as O’Sullivan reached the quarter-finals to contest against Class of ’92 fellow, Mark Williams, whose long potting was fantastic. Things were looking very one-sided as Williams established a 7-2 lead, but during the second session O’Sullivan found some terrific form and nerve as he closed the gap to 8-8 and 10-10, to which point he ran away with victory in a match which saw him make five centuries and seven further 50+ breaks.

Semi-Finals

At this time, O’Sullivan hadn’t made it past a quarter-final and reach a one-table setup for six years. And his opponent was none other than Mark Selby, arguably the toughest opponent to play in the Crucible, especially when in form – and Selby was in form this championship. They contested one of the best semi-finals in years (click here to read my thoughts on that match) which many viewers considered the true final. But keeping it short, Selby held a lead for almost the entire match and was a hair away from the final at 16-14 up. However, O’Sullivan displayed a three-frame-blitz which we’ll probably never see again to win 17-16.

Side note: the final session of this semi-final had an average audience of 1.7 million viewers (peak 2.27m) on BBC Four alone.

Final

The stages of difficulty for O’Sullivan as he progressed through the harder half of the 2020 draw ramped up, much like a video game as you reach towards the end. While most expected the result that followed in the final, his opponent Kyren Wilson was one of the form players throughout the tournament, as he eliminated the defending champion. Although, Wilson succumbed to the pressure of reaching his first world final as O’Sullivan ran away with the first and third session to win his sixth world title 18-8.

The final wasn’t as easy as the score-line would indicate, particularly if you watched the second session where Wilson almost overturned an 8-2 deficit into a 9-8 lead. This was probably O’Sullivan’s worst session of the tournament which encouraged him to indulge in a little technical practice of the morning of the final day. A practice, which resulted in a much finer session as he won seven frames in a row, requiring only one frame in the evening session, which he claimed immediately for No. 6.

Conclusion

To be honest, I still don’t know what impresses me most about O’Sullivan’s journey to this title. The calibre of opponent he had to face to get there? The age at which he did all this? The fact that he won it all with his B game? Probably all of those things. For me, it was down to many people thinking he was done with the sport and should retire. This was the first ‘bad’ season he’s had for quite some time leading up to the WSC and many were stating he should put his cue to rest.

Obviously, it was a WSC played under different circumstances, but the frames still needed to be won and the balls needed to be potted. O’Sullivan showed his bottle and will numerous times throughout as there were a number of times where he was considered out of the tournament. But he continues to play the game on his own terms which makes him capable of winning any tournament, while the rest of the field try and push him out of the top of the rankings.

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