2021 World Championships

[JimMalone]

My takes on two issues discussed here:

1) I thought Murphy's fists were absolutely fine. It's very good and normal to show emotions in sport. It's just negative behaviour or negative and aggressive verbal comments that are disrespectful.

2) When comparing players you should be carefully just pointing to ranking titles these days, as there are so many ranking events, that just don't deserve to be counted the same way as others like the Gibraltar Open and the India Open. And even the Home Nations Series and the World Grand Prix are borderline.

[Kargetina]

At the end of the day, just like in tennis where the majors are by far the most important, i’d say in any objective ranking list, the World’s/Triple Crown should be the measuring stick. I don’t care how many times Robertson won Riga Open, or who won the Snooker Shoot-Out. No one compares Federer and Djokovic and debates who won Dubai more times.

If Selby wins another WC and another UK/Masters and Higgins retires with 4 WC/9 TC, he would surpass Higgins for me. Whether people would prefer either based on their style or imaginary peaks, etc...is another matter.

But 5 World Championships and 11 Triple Crown events would surpass 4 World Championships and 9 Triple Crown events.

[trains]

At the end of the day, just like in tennis where the majors are by far the most important, i’d say in any objective ranking list, the World’s/Triple Crown should be the measuring stick. I don’t care how many times Robertson won Riga Open, or who won the Snooker Shoot-Out. No one compares Federer and Djokovic and debates who won Dubai more times.

If Selby wins another WC and another UK/Masters and Higgins retires with 4 WC/9 TC, he would surpass Higgins for me. Whether people would prefer either based on their style or imaginary peaks, etc...is another matter.

But 5 World Championships and 11 Triple Crown events would surpass 4 World Championships and 9 Triple Crown events.

ok I won't get into any discussion about o Sullivan and wayward geniuses etc so I'll use john Higgins instead , if the discussion is about cv's and players records then there's nothing I can do about that but I'd take the john Higgins that won the wc in 07 or 09 over Stephen hendry in any year of your choosing , I always thought that and it was purely objective , I had no reason for it not to be.

[Ronnie's tip]

I do wonder how Neil Robertson is feeling right now. He loves historical records and definitely wants to be seen as great, but as amazing as his achievments are, his rival Selby has well and truly left him in the dust now. Murphy has always been the 3rd wheel in that trio, in fairness to him.

[JimMalone]

At the end of the day, just like in tennis where the majors are by far the most important, i’d say in any objective ranking list, the World’s/Triple Crown should be the measuring stick. I don’t care how many times Robertson won Riga Open, or who won the Snooker Shoot-Out. No one compares Federer and Djokovic and debates who won Dubai more times.

If Selby wins another WC and another UK/Masters and Higgins retires with 4 WC/9 TC, he would surpass Higgins for me. Whether people would prefer either based on their style or imaginary peaks, etc...is another matter.

But 5 World Championships and 11 Triple Crown events would surpass 4 World Championships and 9 Triple Crown events.

I think in individual sports as Snooker the amount of World Championships or big tournaments won is certainly the most important aspect, but it is not the only one. You can take WC semis or ranking events or number of years in the top 3 or top 5 or something like this in equation. And I think you also can include the eye-test, speaking of which impression you had from the player.
Which means that for me a player with 5 World Titles isn't automatically better as somebody with 4. So I'd argue that for me Ding is a better player than Bingham for example, even if he has one world title less. But he was longer in the top 3, has more big titles and so on. But there's a limit of course.

[Odrl]

At the end of the day, just like in tennis where the majors are by far the most important, i’d say in any objective ranking list, the World’s/Triple Crown should be the measuring stick. I don’t care how many times Robertson won Riga Open, or who won the Snooker Shoot-Out. No one compares Federer and Djokovic and debates who won Dubai more times.

I agree with that in principle, but it's worth noting that the concept of the "Triple Crown" isn't as clear-cut as it seems. The UK Championship has gone through a lot of changes in format over the years, and winning it in recent years isn't quite the same achievement as winning it back when all matches were played over multiple sessions. It's also lost the position of being the second biggest tournament in terms of the length of matches, as well as in terms of prize money. The China Open had overtaken it before the pandemic hit.

Of course the players may still want to win the UK Championship more than any other event apart from the WC, but what I'm trying to say is that there is no guarantee that comparing players by number of "Triple Crown" wins will always be as relevant as it has been in the past.

[Kargetina]

I do wonder how Neil Robertson is feeling right now. He loves historical records and definitely wants to be seen as great, but as amazing as his achievments are, his rival Selby has well and truly left him in the dust now. Murphy has always been the 3rd wheel in that trio, in fairness to him.

And not only Robertson!

Imagine saying to someone in 2011 that 10 years later Selby will have 4 World Championships, while Higgins, Robertson, Murphy, Trump, and Ding will win 1 Championship between them in that time frame.

Who knows what Ding's career would have been like had he won in 2016 and/or 2017. Those two losses, combined with the 10-1 drubbing he received from Selby in the 2016 International Championship seemed to completely crush his confidence. He hasn't been the same player since.

[JimMalone]

And not only Robertson!

Imagine saying to someone in 2011 that 10 years later Selby will have 4 World Championships, while Higgins, Robertson, Murphy, Trump, and Ding will win 1 Championship between them in that time frame.

Actually this wouldn't have shocked me much.
After the 2009 quarterfinal against Higgins I thought that Selby was the new Higgins, meaning he was the most complete player of his generation and I was quite optimistic he would win multiple world crowns. I think I picked him basically every year back than to finally win the World Title (I remember how positive I was in 2010 after he came out of that tough quarter and to me of the four players left in the semis he was the clear-cut favourite and then he lost to Dott) and I was really surprised it took him until 2014.

But yeah as for the others, I would probably have expecte to to better overall. What I (believe to have) thought in 2011 about them:
Trump, despite coming so close, was too one-dimensional for my taste. I thought you can't win a world title only with potting and it wasn't until some years later I admitted he would be a contender.

Robertson I don't know why, but he hadn't totally convinced me at that point and I was quite surprised he lifted the title in 2010. But yeah, winning another one was certainly possible and I guess at about 2013 I would have been very positive about his chances over the next 8 years.

But I definitely expected a title of Ding back then (yeah, you can tell I factually have no clue) and probably another one from Higgins, as he was playing still great in 2011. And while I never was a fan of Murphy's play with his excellent crucible record at that point in time you always had to have him on the screen.

Also I definitely didn't expect O'Sullivan to win three more. Maybe one.

[Odrl]

2010 was before the average age of title winners was raised, so it was reasonable to expect that O'Sullivan, Higgins and Williams were towards the end of their winning years. They ended up winning five more World titles between them, and Bingham won one at 39 too, so I think those were the titles that most people felt would be won by players like Ding, Trump, Robertson, perhaps even Brecel. But in reality only Selby delivered on his promise. Trump won one, and the rest were won by the old timers.

[trains]

2010 was before the average age of title winners was raised, so it was reasonable to expect that O'Sullivan, Higgins and Williams were towards the end of their winning years. They ended up winning five more World titles between them, and Bingham won one at 39 too, so I think those were the titles that most people felt would be won by players like Ding, Trump, Robertson, perhaps even Brecel. But in reality only Selby delivered on his promise. Trump won one, and the rest were won by the old timers.

' old timers ' , are you still sticking to your theory that trump should be dominating a physically negligible game that is much more based on touch determination and experience ? you must think that generations of british lads who've never even seen a pro table in real life couldnt possibly have been a potential world champion otherwise they would have been

[JimMalone]

' old timers ' , are you still sticking to your theory that trump should be dominating a physically negligible game that is much more based on touch determination and experience ? you must think that generations of british lads who've never even seen a pro table in real life couldnt possibly have been a potential world champion otherwise they would have been

I think he's only (rightfully) referring to the fact that the average age of the world champions has gone up by a lot in the 2010s.

[Cue crafty]

Getting to the final takes some doing and provides interesting additional insight, if you look at the listed players:-

Hendry 9 finals two losses ROS 7 finals one loss Davis 8 finals two losses
Higgins 8 finals 4 losses
Williams 4 finals one loss
Selby 5 finals one loss.

Think this is accurate, correct me if wrong.

[JimMalone]

Getting to the final takes some doing and provides interesting additional insight, if you look at the listed players:-

Hendry 8 finals one loss ROS 7 finals one loss
Davis 8 finals two losses
Higgins 8 finals 4 losses
Williams 4 finals one loss
Selby 5 finals one loss.

Think this is accurate, correct me if wrong.

Hendry has 9 finals and two losses (1997 and 2002)

[trains]

I think he's only (rightfully) referring to the fact that the average age of the world champions has gone up by a lot in the 2010s.

ok it's just that outside of wst events you'll hardly see a table respectably replicating a pro table in Britain , then coupled with the almost non stop paid practice these guys are getting I think that explains the ' anomaly ' word he used last week

[Cue crafty]

Hendry has 9 finals and two losses (1997 and 2002)

Thanks Jim, corrected ,adds even more interest.