Woah! I’ve been saying this a lot lately. But I love snooker. And this match was, to use the modern parlance, amaze-balls!
We got home from helping a friend in his garden earlier, and I stuck the TV on hoping for some snooker, with the Masters being on.
And boy oh boy did my wish come true!
I really like both Mark Williams and Neil Robertson. And when I came in the score was 5-2 in favour of Williams. Amazingly Robertson fought back to 5-5.
And then – as the players walked in to the decider to a standing ovation – we were served up a semi-final of acutely and epically dramatic proportions.
Safety play can sometimes be excruciating. But in this frame it was exhilarating. There was a passage of play that looked like it might get kind of stuck; as two reds and the black fit ever tighter to the top left pocket.
Williams was only one or two point off taking the deciding frame. And then this impasse developed. How on Earth were they going to get out of it? Never mind one of them finding a way to win!
If I am to be totally honest, I was, for some reason, rooting for Robertson. Was this my old allegiance to the underdog? Having witnessed him battling back to parity, to see him defeated would be a jarring prospect.
In the end it came down, I guess, to the mounting pressure of the situation, and Williams fluffed what was probably an erroneous choice of shot; aiming to screw down on the cue ball and curve around green to the object ball, yellow, instead he bounced the white onto the green.
Robertson had come to the table needing one snooker. Play had progressed such that at one point he needed two. Now, however, thanks to the penalty points and the lay of the balls resulting from Williams’ mistake, he was in a position – if he cleared up all the remaining colours – to steal the frame by just a few points.
And this he duly did.
His response to winning was extremely moving. First there was the obvious disbelief on his own part. And the relief. All the stress and pressure, which Ted handled amazingly, suddenly gone. I could feel the tension, the weight, quite palpably, lifted off his shoulders, and the rush of exhaustion that followed.
True gent’ that he is, he then apologised to Mark for winning. He needed a while to compose himself, as he readied and steadied himself for the post match interviews. The clarity of his emotions in that moment was very powerful to witness, amplified by a crowd on their feet, clapping and cheering.
Rob Walker – a terrific boon to Snooker as a fan, pundit and commentator – showed exemplary taste and restraint in how he handled this moment. He gave Robertson the time and space to come down off his cloud a little, and when he did get the interview started, it was pitched perfectly to elicit a very candid and even moving response from Neil.
Walker was spot on in observing that no one who witnessed the event – he was referring to those privileged enough to be there in person, but it was no less true for me as a viewer at home – will never forget what they’d seen.
And Robertson ‘broke the fourth wall’, so to speak, turning to face the camera and the audience watching wherever the may be, and said ‘I just want to say, to any kids watching, never give up!’ What a sublime moment. Truly sport at its exciting and inspiring best.
And then, later in the day, this heartwarming exchange:
