On the Brink

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With tonight’s Coral Tour Championship final in the balance at 8-8, the outcome will be crucial to the future of snooker. If Robertson triumphs, I will breathe a sigh of relief because it will put an end to the O’Sullivan winning train. Not only will he have failed to reach the number one spot but we would have prevented single player domination which reigned the 80s and 90s with the Dais and Hendry years. If however O’Sullivan wins, all of the above apply.

Snooker should not be about individual domination but shared wins. If Ronnie remains at the top of the sport, other players are frankly doomed because he plays another level of snooker. Rather like a fly on sticky paper, so many players fail to escape Ronnie’s grasp. Robertson must prove tonight that he doesn’t become phased and fall by the wayside as Trump did in the semifinal, squandering a massive lead over Ronnie.

It is a lot of weight to place on Robertson’s shoulders but he is one of the few players that can achieve victory at Ronnie’s cost.My views will probably infuriate many O” Sullivan fans but when pundits say snooker is in a good place, they mean because Ronnie is dominating the sport. I congratulate World Snooker for rejuvenating snooker with a 20 event calendar and widening the tournaments to different locations but snooker becomes frankly boring if one player wins all the time. Ronnie doesn’t play the whole tour and adopts a frankly snobbish attitude towards dregrading the players and venues. So my message to the 127 is be brave, bite the bullet and break the Ronnie O’Sullivan show.

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