Weekly Round-up in Snooker

A great deal has happened in the last few days with the English Open in Crawley providing the backdrop for several talking points.

Tom Ford is the Maximum Man

Willie Thorne might have been labelled as Mr. Maximum in the past but it’s a fellow Leicester man who has been banging them in for fun so far this season.

Tom Ford wrapped up an excellent 4-3 victory over the in-form Shaun Murphy in style in the last 16 of the English Open in Crawley on Thursday.

His terrific 147 break was his second of the season so far, after also managing the feat in the International Championship qualifiers.

Unfortunately, though, it’s still unlikely that the UK Championship semi-finalist will be rewarded for his exploits.

That’s because of a new incentive brought in this year stating that a total of 20 maximum breaks need to be compiled throughout the campaign in order for the players to share a £1 million jackpot.

Just the 18 more to go!

Ronnie’s Acting the Numpty…Again

Another week, another tournament, and another opportunity to cringe at the behaviour of Ronnie O’Sullivan.

He may be the greatest and most naturally gifted player who’s ever lived and he’s certainly a joy to watch on the snooker table.

But off it O’Sullivan is becoming a bit of a bore and even his staunchest supporters can’t deny that his constant tirades are tiresome.

This week, he was once more complaining about Crawley, a year after saying that the K2 venue smelled of urine.

Following more soundbites that included O’Sullivan quipping that “every day in Crawley is a day lost in my life” the world number two subsequently tweeted a photo of the venue’s restaurant that appeared to show how dirty it was.

The problem? The photo was six months old.

World Snooker and the venue itself were both quick to highlight that a refurbishment had been done and the place was, in fact, looking pretty darn clean.

As rival Judd Trump quite rightly pointed out earlier in the week, it’s O’Sullivan’s choice whether to enter a tournament or not and, given the fact he already played in last year’s English Open in Crawley only to heavily criticise it, why on earth didn’t he just stay at home on this occasion?

At any rate, the “Rocket” exited in the fourth round after an unexpected loss to Mei Xiwen.

Hi Ronnie, thanks for your feedback however I think your image may be from last year! As you can see from ours, since we took over, we’ve made lots of improvements to the café, including replacing the furniture. 😀 pic.twitter.com/PrKAv7D7bs

— Everyone Active (@EveryoneActive) October 17, 2019

A Few Winners

Last weekend, the first event of the season in the Irish amateur scene took place in Letterkenny.

Brendan O’Donoghue triumphed in the Barrack Classic, an event you can read more about in the return of the Sniper’s Snippets feature.

In women’s snooker, England’s Rebecca Kenna won the invitational Hong Kong Women’s Masters with a 4-1 defeat of China’s Bai Yulu.

There was also another successful staging of a WDBS weekend with Gloucester hosting the Parris Cues Champion of Champions.

A complete write-up of the various competitions was published over on the WPBSA website, which you can read here.

What’s Coming?

First up is the climax to the English Open in Crawley with eight players left in with a shot of winning the first leg of the Home Nations series.

The Australian Women’s Snooker Open is returning to Sydney this weekend with former world champion Ng On Yee defending her crown.

Next week, there will be two more groups played out in this season’s Championship League.

Finally, the UK Seniors Championship will also be staged in Hull with the likes of Jimmy White, Stephen Hendry, and John Parrott in action.