Sporting Life
Kurt Maflin
Kurt Maflin

World Championship: Ronnie O'Sullivan and Kurt Maflin under the microscope at the Crucible

By Richard Mann
Snooker
Fri August 07, 2020 · 4y ago

As the first week of the World Snooker Championship draws to a close, Richard Mann reflects on an action-packed seven days at the Crucible.

Week one: Entertainment. Tick. Excitement. Tick. Shocks. Tick. Maximum break. Tick. Ronnie on song. Tick. Still snooker loopy? Tick.

It began with Judd Trump kicking off his title defence in rather unspectacular fashion. In fact, Trump was positively laboured in his first-round win over Tom Ford, but despite that slow start the first seven days of this year's delayed World Championship really have had something for everyone.

They say good things come to those who wait and the 2020 edition of this most magnificent of events is bubbling up to be something very special indeed.

At the time of writing, Trump has a fight on his hands against impressive youngster Yan Bingtao if he is to keep alive his hopes of breaking the famous Crucible Curse, while another former world champion, Shaun Murphy, has already made for the exit door having been thoroughly outgunned by the cool Noppon Saengkham.

Sticking on the theme of big shocks: what about Jamie Clarke's defeat of Mark Allen? Clarke has barely won a game all season but the Welshman displayed nerves of steel and a very solid all-round game to down the 2018 Masters champion, whose five centuries weren't enough to see him through.

Up next for Clarke is Anthony McGill, another qualifier whose own nerves must be frayed having held off a whirlwind comeback - yes, I said whirlwind and I didn't mean Jimmy White - from Jack Lisowski.

Oh Jack, what are you doing to us? Bundles of talent, a swagger that would make Ronaldo proud but still no ranking title. 'It'll happen' they keeping saying but time stands still for no man, especially in this head-frazzler of a sport which has shown this week just what a depth of talent it possesses.

McGill is back in the big time after a quiet couple of years and the ultimately match-winning blue he found in that deciding frame was so good it met with instant approval from a shattered Lisowski and demonstrated that the Scot has bottle to go with everything else.

Talking of bottle, Ding Junhui has had his questioned once or twice but he kept his cool to hold off Mark King 10-9 in their engrossing first-round tie and the Chinese will have no doubt been thrilled to know that his reward is a meeting with Ronnie O'Sullivan in round two.

O'Sullivan was braced for impact when crashing heads with fellow speed demon Thepchaiya Un-Nooh but that proved a one-sided affair as the Rocket barely broke sweat. Still, it gave us another chance to marvel at his genius as he reeled off big break after big break. Sublime touch, precision cue-ball control and long potting to die for; even the new haircut O'Sullivan sported looked sharp and there is a growing feeling that after a barren run at the Crucible, this could be his year.

It would be ironic were O'Sullivan to become the first man to win 37 career ranking titles at an event he has recently described as an 'ordeal' and one he hadn't appeared to keen to participate in at one stage, having compared playing inside an empty Crucible Threatre to being in prison.

Love him or loathe him - and most of us love him - O'Sullivan sells snooker like no other and it really would be magic were he to line up in the final on Sunday week.

A potential semi-final meeting with another former Crucible champion in Neil Robertson certainly gets the juices flowing and the Australian looked to mean business in his opening match when brushing aside Liang Wenbo.

Robertson's breakbuilding really is something else these days and it was nice to see him tip his hat to Trump on twitter after the latter went to 100 century breaks for the season, becoming only the second ever man to do so, after Robertson himself.

The respect between the game's elite players remains something snooker can be very proud of and few demand respect quite like John Higgins.

The Scot's bid for a fifth world title and fourth final in as many years ended with defeat to qualifier Kurf Maflin on Thursday, only a few hours after compiling the 11th 147 maximum break in Crucible history.

Seeing Higgins pump his fist in celebration was a wonderful sight but there is no doubt he would have traded it for another chance at title glory. In the end, it wasn't to be, and he and some of the other top seeds have probably been inconvenienced by the absence of crowds in the Crucible this year.

Great snooker matches are made by atmosphere, great theatres like the Crucible helping create it, and great snooker players thrive as mere mortals find themselves broken by the pressure.

That's not to say that pressure has not existed this week. Of course it has, but it hasn't been the same, and the likes of Martin Gould and Maflin have been able to float around this historic venue and bring their practice games to the match table.

For all the inevitable O'Sullivan hype, and authoritative displays from Robertson and Barry Hawkins, Gould might have been the pick of the bunch so far and he and his fellow qualifiers will know they may never get a better chance than in this unique year.

The man who that might apply to most is Maflin, a huge talent who really looks to have got his act together now and has already claimed the scalps of Dave Gilbert and Higgins this week. He is a protege of his close friend, White, and it is easy to see why.

From potting balls off the lampshades, being warned for making an obscene gesture after losing position when chasing a maximum break, and speaking Norwegian in his post-match interviews, Maflin has been the story of the tournament so far.

Beating Higgins at the Crucible takes some doing, whatever the circumstances, and you sense Maflin is starting to believe. Whoever is writing his scripts, there might be a few more pages to come.

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