Right side of the blue

I am so happy right now. I don’t have much of anything to say.
I really really like three of the top four players in the ranking list now (THAT IS THE STRANGEST FEELING). Which means that people I like get to the final really quite often lately. Normally not two of them, though. And this one is particularly special because they’re both people I’ve thought I might *never* get to see play snooker again, and they play some of my favourite snooker of all time. Obviously with John, there was an awful chance he would be banned, and with Mark he was WORLD NUMBER 47, I just thought he was going to disappear into Prestatyn forever. And now they’re in the final of the UK championship, and it’s just very very pleasing.

I can’t talk much about Mark Williams. Because obviously I didn’t *watch* most of that brilliant and amazing thing happen. I haven’t failed to watch snooker out of fear and pessimism in so long, but twitter was so impossibly infuriating and the commentators were killing me and I know there are mute buttons for both of those things, but I just didn’t want to look at Murphy any more, and oh my god. I watched the live scores – which are one of the better things Barry Hearn has done to snooker – while pretending not to look at the live scores, and then when Mark Williams had got one frame back I put the snooker on in a corner and determinedly played tetris as if it was far more entertaining. OH MY GOD.

What happened, in case I ever come here trying to work that out, was that Mark Williams went 6-3 in front quite happily, and then it should have been 7-3, but Murphy got him in a snooker and Mark Williams went a bit wobbly and started missing just everything, and so it was 6-4, and then, suddenly and horribly, it was 6-8 and the world was an awful place. Except Murphy is too new to understand about grit! Brilliant. Mark Williams just won those last three frames by potting long balls as if he had NEVER HAD A PROBLEM THANK YOU VERY MUCH. It was stunning and strange and slightly as if snooker quite liked us. Read the rest of this entry »

Higgins/Allen – 9-5

What was that then? They were 4-4 at the mid session and then Higgins, rather than letting Mark Allen have a few frames just to keep everything interesting, won the evening session 5-1 and is in a final. It’s like that thing that commentators always think will happen where John Higgins gets a bit in front and then makes it count, and then it happened and they were right and that would have been upsetting if it wasn’t excellent. I can’t remember anything that happened, I think mostly John Higgins potted things without making too much of a meal of it, and Allen gave him a few easy chances by not being gritty enough.

Grit is v important in beating people from the late nineties.

Williams/Murphy – 1-0

Williams has remembered how to cue! This is a terrific, somewhat unexpected, twist to the match. His children are there watching him, the children who RUINED HIS CAREER. Apparently he’s not holding a grudge.

He potted a lot of things in the first frame, but now in the second one he keeps ending up about two inches off the baulk cushion and I am judging him, I DON’T THINK YOU CAN EXPECT TO WIN MATCHES PLAYING LIKE THAT, WILLIAMS.

They’re wearing the ugliest combination of waistcoats ever – although at least Mark Williams is welsh, Mark Allen wears a red waistcoat sometimes and just looks bizarrely wrong, like he hates his country and wants to confuse.

Mark Williams missed a red ball. YOU CANNOT EXPECT TO GET TO THE FINAL OF THE UK MISSING BALLS LIKE THAT, MARK. I’m expecting Mark Williams to throw away the opportunity for a Higgins/Williams final, just so I won’t be too happy. But I don’t care, I want Higgins to win it anyway so that he gets to be world number one.

Well, Mark Williams has played a careless safety there, Shaun Murphy’s not on anything, but I expect he’ll go on now to win this frame. And then the match, because this, the second frame out of a possible seventeen, is a frame Mark Williams really needs to win if he’s going to keep a hold on this match, and indeed retain any pretence of playing snooker professionally as a career.

None of this is stuff the commentators are saying, it’s just I’ve been commentating on everything since yesterday afternoon in the tone of John Virgo and it’s difficult to stop. It’s a terrible habit to get into and I don’t recommend it.

Oh. It’s 2-0 now. Excellent.