China Open Qualifying

[merlin1234]

I wonder when I see a player struggling like that if the best thing they could do would be to take a complete break from snooker for a few weeks, though I don't know if it's possible to find a window like that without sacrificing ranking points these days, which he obviously can't afford to do.

Sometimes you can overthink things so much that you essentially forget how to play naturally. I remember Hendry saying in an interview that he would hardly touch his cue in the off season during his peak years.

[the nugget]

I wonder when I see a player struggling like that if the best thing they could do would be to take a complete break from snooker for a few weeks, though I don't know if it's possible to find a window like that without sacrificing ranking points these days, which he obviously can't afford to do.

Sometimes you can overthink things so much that you essentially forget how to play naturally. I remember Hendry saying in an interview that he would hardly touch his cue in the off season during his peak years.

Good post there merlin, yeah the point about forgetting how to play naturally is a very good one. Id say a lot of us will find that when the cueing form is bad thats when we start to wonder if it this or if its that and get over technical with everything. The problem can escalate from here then, have a look at Hendrys 80s/90s free flowing cue action compared to what hes cueing like the last few years,really slow and methodical, its gotta have taken a toll on his natural game to have changed his natural flow so much.

[merlin1234]

I think the same thing is true of any activity that requires a very high level of precision/coordination and which relies heavily on muscle memory conditioning.

Cricket batsmen get into terrible trouble with footwork and trigger movements sometimes, for instance. You're so fixated on trying to make the correct footwork or shot selection decision or on some technical aspect of delivering the bat correctly that it slows everything down and suddenly batting becomes incredibly hard. You never seem to be in the correct postion, you make bad decisions and you can even find you're not actually watching the ball properly.

Likewise in music professional soloists can easily over practice pieces and effectively become so fixated on playing the notes correctly that they lose track of the actual musical narrative, and the music comes out sounding forced and is no fun to play.

In both cases a break can work wonders in terms of rediscovering your natural, instinctive way of playing.

[Neil Taperell]

So Ebdon whitewashes Wembo, and finishes with a century. Wembo was very poor though, shame really, I like the lad, he seems a bit of a character, but his game doesn't seem to be moving on at all, he's still quite young though I suppose.

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Wasn't so long ago that he lost 5 nil to Wenbo .......remember the betting issue over the match.......never proven though .

[gazza147]

Well done to a Good Friend of mine Jamie Jones from Neath in Wales with a Cracking 5-1 Win Over Marco Fu!

Also good luck to Dom Dale with a Good 5-2 Win over Jack Lisowski.

Pitty Michael White wasnt thru also as he was 4-1 up and should have Beaten Ken Doherty 5-1 never mind Michael Next Time m8.