Snooker Interesting Again?!

Snooker loopy nuts are we?

First off try not to be too shocked that I’ve posted twice in a day. I’ll let you in a secret in that the last post was started last week I just hadn’t gotten round to finishing it till today. Anyway, on topic. Snooker for most people is not a very interesting sport. It’s probably up there with darts and cricket as sporting pursuits that, unless you’re British, you probably don’t get. There are players from overseas but it’s generally dominated by home nation players. At the moment the UK Championships are taking place and are currently at the semi-final stage.

The first semi was won by Chinese player Ding Junhui, the second semi was to be contested by World #1 Ronnie O’Sullivan and World #4 John Higgins. Now on paper you’d think this would be a close match but by the end of the afternoon session Higgins was leading O’Sullivan 6-2. It then got even worse for O’Sullivan as he then lost the next two frames to leave him trailing Higgins by six frames with the Scot only needing one more frame to seal a place in the final. However what was to follow has re-ignited my interest in snooker as a sport to watch. You see what happened next was O’Sullivan went on to win the next six frames in a row! Yes there was a contentious decision in frame 13 but the fact of the matter is O’Sullivan was on a charge and held his nerve whilst Higgins seemed to be losing his cool. In the end, however, Higgins pulled it together when it mattered and ended up edging the encounter 9-8 but what a game of snooker!

You see snooker, for me, stopped being a sport to watch a few years ago. I can’t really remember a reason why but it could be anything from seeing my favourite player  Jimmy White constantly lose or it just didn’t hold my interest. However tonight’s match reminded me that if you give it time and pay attention it can be a very exciting sport to watch. I only watched the evening session but once I flipped over and saw Ronnie move to 8-5 I became engrossed. Then as Ronnie got closer and closer to taking it to 8-8 I just couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. I hardly moved until finally, in the deciding frame, John Higgins sealed the match. The safety play was lacking at times but it was just so tense to watch especially with the couple of flukes that came O’Sullivan’s way which I think extended the match somewhat.

I know not every game of snooker will be like this but I will most certainly be tuning in to tomorrow’s final and even if that turns out to be damp squib this was still one of the best snooker comebacks I’m ever likely to see.