Snooker’s most prestigious tournament, the World Championship, is currently taking place at the Crucible theatre in Sheffield. It’s a fantastic, intimate venue in which the very best players are on show, and hence tickets get snapped up as soon as they become available. Fortunately I managed to put up with the theatre’s ear-gratingly bad hold music for long enough to secure some, and so yesterday morning four of us found ourselves tucked up in the back corner of the back row ready to watch the second session of Mark Selby versus Stephen Hendry.
The atmosphere at snooker matches is always great, but at the Crucible it is perhaps even better. The crowd of students, middle-aged men and silver-haired grannies mingles together happily, with the occasional player or referee casually thrown into the mix. Snooker is a sport where fans can get close to their heroes: I strode alongside Willie Thorne for a good few paces on the way in; my friend Mike walked past Rob Walker at the train station; as we left we spotted Jan Verhaas chatting up a couple of ladies in a nearby Starbucks. It's all about the action on the table, however, and we had what could turn into a good match on our hands: a star of the future versus a star of the past.
The first session had turned out evens, with Selby and Hendry having four frames apiece. However, the situation became rapidly one-sided as the Jester from Leicester started to demolish his opponent. Hendry did start reasonably in the opening frame, but then the first of what was to turn into a series of avoidable errors allowed Selby to get straight back in, and he took no hesitation in powering through a break of 96. And so it continued. Hendry for a moment looked like he was going to get a frame on the board, but a bad miss let Selby in, and the younger player ruthlessly cleared up. Hendry sat in his seat with his head hanging low, unable to watch as the frame that should have been his inexorably slipped away. The score was now 4-8 in Selby's favour.
Any hopes that the 15 minute mid-session interval would allow the former champion to get himself together and put up a fight were quickly dashed. He did manage to come out tops in one frame, but Selby's cueing just got better and better and Hendry found himself unable to respond. Up in the commentary box Willie Thorne was getting increasingly excited about Selby's cue ball control, waxing lyrical about 'deep screws' like there was no tomorrow. This control, combined with some superb potting, earned Selby every remaining frame in the match.
We walked out pleased to have seen a player on top form, but disappointed that it hadn't been more of a contest. Maybe the afternoon session would hold more promise: Joe Perry and Ali Carter should be quite evenly matched and so surely we could look forward to some good safety exchanges and the odd dash of drama. We grabbed an improvised lunch of satsumas and Club cake bars from Somerfield, then strolled back to the Crucible.
Carter had established a decent overnight lead, and at 10-6 he had just three frames left to win in order to progress to the quarter-finals. However, he seemed to have left all his form in his hotel room and struggled hugely to pot anything. Perry was better, but not by much, and together they made a complete mess of the table for the first few frames. We looked at each other and shook our heads. This was not good snooker.
It didn't help that on the other side of the theatre there was a cracking match between Ronnie O'Sullivan and Mark Williams taking place. It also didn't help that our commentating team was Neal Foulds and Terry Griffiths. Now Neal can be okay when teamed with someone able to add a bit of excitement to proceedings, but Terry's utterly inane observations, delivered in his usual soporific tones, soon had us all yawning. One by one we either took out our earpieces or switched over to listen to John Parrott and Dennis Taylor discussing the action on the other table.
How we wished the dividing screen would just go up! It seemed that Ronnie was having a good day, and that Williams was playing superbly. Alas, unless the action was taking place around the yellow spot (which we could just about see from our back-row position), we were unable to get a glimpse of it. Oh, the frustration!
Back to our table, and things did admittedly improve a little. Whatever Ali Carter did during the mid-session interval, it woke him up and he remembered how to play. In the first half of the session Perry had caught up to level the score 10-10, but a century break, followed by a solid 82 took Carter back into the lead. The final frame was again scrappy, but Carter clinched it, and with it the match. He may be through to the quarter-finals, but he'll have to play a lot better if he hopes to defeat Shaun Murphy later today. As for us, we got up, stretched, said goodbye to the Crucible and began the long drive south.
