2014 World Championship - Discussion

[The Statman]

This was a very suspicious match.This should be investigated thoroughly.

Are you trying to say it was a fix? If so, that sounds like a very dangerous thing to suggest since it is usually the loser who is investigated. Sure O'Sullivan missed a good number of balls, some of them extraordinarily easy ones, but to take that as suspicious to the point of warranting an inquiry is taking things a little too far, to be honest.

investigate, why not?! the odds of him loosing from 10-5 must of been real nice

Are you seriously suggesting that O'Sullivan might have agreed to some betting scam, that would have been worth more to him than a potential £300,000 first prize?

[j6uk]

If there was an imposter, I would bet my money on Noel Gallagher or Robbie Williams.

depending on the odds

[The Statman]

I wonder why Ronnie let it(Selbys' "tactics") get to him in the final. It didn't seem to bother him at the Masters?!

I think quite simply because O'Sullivan wasn't playing all that well.

Another day it would have been different. O'Sullivan in the end made the more mistakes, so while Selby's best wasn't better than O'Sullivan's, his worst wasn't as bad as O'Sullivan.

O'Sullivan's fight was actually more of a credit than has been mentioned. He stuck in there and didn't tire of trying his best. He just had that bad day at the office on the most inopportune day.

[The Statman]

If there was an imposter, I would bet my money on Noel Gallagher or Robbie Williams.

Robbie Williams lost in the first round, though!

[Dr_Doctor]

10-5 was sunday and ron's imposter lost 18-14 on monday

If there was an imposter, I would bet my money on Noel Gallagher or Robbie Williams.

[j6uk]

I guess he had never played Selby for that long. If it was a best of 19, he would have won it 10-5 before Selby took control.

10-5 was sunday and ron's imposter lost 18-14 on monday

[Dr_Doctor]

I wonder why Ronnie let it(Selbys' "tactics") get to him in the final. It didn't seem to bother him at the Masters?!

I guess he had never played Selby for that long. If it was a best of 19, he would have won it 10-5 before Selby took control.

[j6uk]

ronnie played on sunday and his imposter had his cue on monday

[Giggity1984]

I wonder why Ronnie let it(Selbys' "tactics") get to him in the final. It didn't seem to bother him at the Masters?!

[j6uk]

Are you trying to say it was a fix? If so, that sounds like a very dangerous thing to suggest since it is usually the loser who is investigated. Sure O'Sullivan missed a good number of balls, some of them extraordinarily easy ones, but to take that as suspicious to the point of warranting an inquiry is taking things a little too far, to be honest.

investigate, why not?! the odds of him loosing from 10-5 must of been real nice

[The Statman]

yea yea whatever.....it's just my oppinion,deal with it.i wont be able to convince you and other way around.
It's like comparing i dont know, ronaldo with filllipo inzaghi.
Selby knew exactly how to annoy ronnie and break his nerves and momentum with slow shi-tty frames,now imagine if everyone would play like selby against ronnie,which is not hard to do for any player on world championship.if there was restrictions to 20 seconds for a shot,selby wouldn't even be in the top 16 players.He did exactly the same thing with my fav this year,neil robertson,the only difference is that Neil is much stronger mentally than ronnie,and he responded much better than ronnie.

Oh so your favourite is Robertson, who was even slower than Selby in their match and famously took over 4 minutes to say "play again" to Graeme Dott in the 2010 final. (I didn't see the stats for the Selby-Robertson match but that was widely reported to be the case.)

That makes your comments about Selby all the more baffling.

I like to compare this to football,now you do everything within the rules but no one likes to see a player laying on the ground just to spend a few minutes and calm the situation on the field.exactly like selby,slow the game down and watch for your opponents mistakes,and they will come because your opponent is not potting anything and he will start to miss easy shots.never take a chance if youre not certain.there is a simple explanation for selbys poor positional play during the match.He was so affraid too miss
even so that he forgot to play with the cue ball aswell.what a twaaat.

I know absolutely nothing about football, but I am surprised that a player lying on the ground for a few minutes when unhurt is within the rules of football? I assumed it was against the rules but just never punished.

Now about the attitude and signing autographs,i don't care one bit about that,i don't care about the players personality outside the snooker game.I watch snooker because it is a great and fun game,not because selby is a nice guy,or because ronnie is an arrogant *****.They have their own lives and they can do whatever tha hell they want to do.
Nothing special about this guy,no one will remember him.Obviously there are alot of haters here especially ronnie haters who hate him only because of his....wait for it.....attitude...hahahahaha you just confirmed it.So you watch the snooker game after the game,you like interviews and signing autographs more than the game?okay watch your boring NICE guy he is the champion now.you people are really funny.

Well, I've been playing league snooker for over 20 years, been a top-grade referee for 15 years, am secretary of the local league and travel up and down the country watching snooker (80 ranking finals now!) for longer than I care to remember, and I haven't collected autographs since I was about 18.

So yeah, obviously I don't understand the game at all and don't have any knowledge at all and am simply a Ronnie-hater who hangs around looking for signatures.

I'm actually an O'Sullivan fan as well as a Selby fan (and Robertson come to that, they are probably my top 3 at the moment) and I get just as annoyed with Ronnie haters, trying to work out why anyone wouldn't want to watch the best cueist the game has ever seen.

As a Ronnie fan, I think it's a remarkable achievement to have won two consecutive titles and damn nearly a third, at the wrong end of his 30s, and that it took a performance like Selby's to prevent him from getting there. I also think he's got every chance of getting his sixth title next year.

Just my oppinion you dont have to take this personally

Oh, sorry. I just did.

This was a very suspicious match.This should be investigated thoroughly.

What exactly would you investigate? Are you trying to say it was a fix? If so, that sounds like a very dangerous thing to suggest since it is usually the loser who is investigated. Sure O'Sullivan missed a good number of balls, some of them extraordinarily easy ones, but to take that as suspicious to the point of warranting an inquiry is taking things a little too far, to be honest.

[j6uk]

I see it all, what I enjoy is another matter

ive played the game to a respective level and advised you how to go about things many times before so, you take from it what you will lad

[alexiy]

"Opportunistic money maker"?

That's one of the most astonishing posts I've read this week, and against some stiff opposition.

At the end of the day, he played well within the rules, and Ronnie O'Sullivan was unable to respond on the day that it matters. That's how sport works. The best doesn't necessarily win; if someone has a bad day someone else can prevail.

It's worth remembering that Mark Selby has a pretty good record at the Crucible. He remains one of only a handful of players to have made 5 centuries in one match under 30 frames, had a better Crucible century strike rate than either O'Sullivan or Higgins until 2011 when they won further titles, and is a solid and proven big-time winner.

I don't care if you don't like him or his style of play - that's you're opinion and you are by all means entitled to it - but to call someone who has as good a pedigree as Selby, whether you like him or not, an unworthy world champion and an opportunistic money maker is nothing short of preposterous.

And actually I'd much rather have a world champion who will always stop and chat and have a photo with fans than someone who sneaks out side entrances and walks past a school group of 8-year-olds at the Crucible stage door without even saying hello, let alone doing any autographs.

But I suppose that doesn't come in to it where a 'worthy champion' is concerned.

I was at the after-tournament party late on Monday night and at 2am Mark was still very happy to chat and have photos with anyone who asked. Ronnie O'Sullivan, by contrast, last year did the bear contractual minimum and off he went long before any fans got to gain entry.

So yes, you're right, there are stranger people on the planet - there have been, ever since the mirror was invented.

yea yea whatever.....it's just my oppinion,deal with it.i wont be able to convince you and other way around.
It's like comparing i dont know, ronaldo with filllipo inzaghi.
Selby knew exactly how to annoy ronnie and break his nerves and momentum with slow shi-tty frames,now imagine if everyone would play like selby against ronnie,which is not hard to do for any player on world championship.if there was restrictions to 20 seconds for a shot,selby wouldn't even be in the top 16 players.He did exactly the same thing with my fav this year,neil robertson,the only difference is that Neil is much stronger mentally than ronnie,and he responded much better than ronnie.
I like to compare this to football,now you do everything within the rules but no one likes to see a player laying on the ground just to spend a few minutes and calm the situation on the field.exactly like selby,slow the game down and watch for your opponents mistakes,and they will come because your opponent is not potting anything and he will start to miss easy shots.never take a chance if youre not certain.there is a simple explanation for selbys poor positional play during the match.He was so affraid too miss
even so that he forgot to play with the cue ball aswell.what a twaaat.
Now about the attitude and signing autographs,i don't care one bit about that,i don't care about the players personality outside the snooker game.I watch snooker because it is a great and fun game,not because selby is a nice guy,or because ronnie is an arrogant *****.They have their own lives and they can do whatever tha hell they want to do.
Nothing special about this guy,no one will remember him.Obviously there are alot of haters here especially ronnie haters who hate him only because of his....wait for it.....attitude...hahahahaha you just confirmed it.So you watch the snooker game after the game,you like interviews and signing autographs more than the game?okay watch your boring NICE guy he is the champion now.you people are really funny.
Just my oppinion you dont have to take this personally,but then again emotions are a huge part of the sport.There wouldn't be any sport without fans.

[chrisoverson]

"beauty is in the eye of the beholder" what one individual enjoys might not be another's. everyone is different.

I enjoy the tactical aspects of the game, this is what makes it interesting to me. the cat and mouse trying to out think your opponent this excites me as break building is for others.

don't get me wrong I do enjoy break building its beautiful to watch how a break develops, however as a contest I wouldn't enjoy one player knocking in high break after another in one visit and the game being one sided. like what O'sullivan did to Walden in the Masters all one sided not for me.

Agreed. Regardless of people's attitude towards selby if he won the tournament, he's done well. I'll be honest, I wasn't sure if I liked him that much before this tournament. He doesn't appear to have a natural flow, but the determination, mental strength and patience got him through. I'd rather see someone win by having to work for it and grind it out than watch ton after ton disappear. In a tournament where everyone clears up in one visit, it's no longer down to skill and clever play but just down to whoever gets a shot at a red first. Who wants to compete in or watch that?

A lot of this tournament has been "scrappy", but I really love that. Toward the end of the Neil Robertson vs Judd Trump game, the safety play was excellent. For Judd to go 1 hr 4 mins without potting a ball, whatever people may say about Neil's gamesmanship and altering the pace, he was working very hard.

Snooker for me should be a battle of the wills, a game of chess, not just one long pot followed by a clearance every time. I'm sure that's the way it's headed, and one day the top players (perhaps the future asian players, such as the 3 year old on youtube) will be so good that no ball is safe and every frame takes 10 minutes, but at the moment we've been getting some good battles to watch.

[scottley]

Exactly how accurate are ball markers? Surely theres as much chance of it moving a millimetre either way to make you worse of as there is making you better off?