Nick Metcalfe Snooker Column: Timeless great Mark Williams remains one of a kind

Graceful Williams still a pleasure to watch for fans everywhere

There's never been a snooker player quite like Mark Williams.

It remains one of the finest pleasures as a fan of this weird and wonderful sport to watch the Welshman at work.

Snooker meets art when Williams is at the table. There's something so timelessly graceful in the way he goes about his business.

Smashing the balls into the pockets? Leave that for the others. Williams is all about the gentle touch. He famously floats the balls to their destination. Slowly does it.

Snooker has always been a restful business. Balm for the soul. Watching Williams is pure Radox.

We all know we're in the midst of snooker greatness here. Is there anyone out there who doesn't have him in their top six players of all time?

It's been storybook stuff from Williams for decades. This son of a coal miner from a village in Ebbw Vale turned professional at the same time as some other fairly well known snooker players in 1992 and won his first ranking event at the age of 20 in 1996. John Major was Prime Minister when Williams claimed the Welsh Open crown.

From there, the good times rolled. He beat fellow Welshman Matthew Stevens to win his first world title in 2000 and he became world No.1 too.

He enjoyed another Crucible triumph three years later, this time edging out Ken Doherty in the final. He won the UK Championship and Masters titles in that 2002-03 season too.

And he was doing all this without really seeming to have much of a care in the world. He often left us with the impression, what's the big deal? It's only a game of snooker after all.

Two China Open trophies went into the cabinet in the following years. But the winning eventually did dry up after his 2011 German Masters success.

Williams went six years without a ranking event victory, dropped out of the top 16 and frankly looked a pale shadow of his former self. It left even this effervescent character down in the dumps.

We weren't quite preparing to write the Williams career obituaries. But most people doubted that he could ever win big again.

Williams felt so disillusioned, he didn't even turn up to a special event to mark forty years of the World Championship at the Crucible in 2017, shortly after he lost in qualifying to Stuart Carrington.

Speaking to me five years ago, Williams made it very clear how close he came to quitting the sport that spring and that it was his wife Joanne who twisted his arm to give it another go.

"It was the first time ever in my career that I actually wanted to retire," Williams said.

"It was just the missus that convinced me to carry on. If it wasn’t for Joanne, I would have stopped I think.

"She didn't want me in the house 24/7, that’s the gist of it I got."

Thank goodness for Joanne then. While Williams watched the 2017 tournament in a caravan, it was a very different story twelve months later.

Let's fill in the important blanks first though. Williams felt he couldn't resurrect his fortunes alone and turned to innovative coaching technique SightRight and its inventor Stephen Feeney.

Not that he was always sold on it. His good friend Lee Walker, a SightRight coach, had been persuading Williams to try it for years. But Williams wasn't interested. Indeed, he used to call it "SightWrong".

He eventually relented however and was instantly hooked. It quickly paid dividends too, with Williams capturing the Northern Ireland Open title and then the German Masters soon after.

That was all a prelude to his epic run at the 2018 World Championship. Williams battled through to the last four and then beat Barry Hawkins 17-15 in a marathon semi-final.

The final against John Higgins was the stuff of folklore, for my money the best of all Crucible showpieces.

The pair delivered sporting theatre to treasure over those two days, while the climax was classic Williams.

He missed a championship ball pink in the 33rd frame, with Higgins pouncing to make a trademark clearance to reduce his arrears to 17-16. The pressure was as intense as it comes.

But Williams isn't one to wallow in what went before. He somehow produced one of the greatest single ball pots you'll ever see, an audacious red to middle, to get himself in again and compiled a decisive break of 69. King of the world for the third time at the age of 43.

The really good thing is, this wasn't just an Indian summer season for Williams, the like of which we've seen in all sports so many times over the years.

Williams has been in and around the very top of snooker since that Sheffield victory. Even this year, he landed one of the sport's biggest titles, the Tour Championship.

And he's made the revamped British Open pretty much his own since it returned to the calendar, winning two of the last three editions. He'll be in Cheltenham next week trying to land the title again.

Williams will turn 50 in March, but he's showing few signs of decline. Any retirement talk has long gone. Quite the opposite in fact, he now says he'll go on for ever.

Off the table, he remains as entertaining as always. Even in a sport rightly toasted for its everyman and everywoman ethos, Williams sticks out a mile.

A night out at the bingo with a few pints and kebab to finish. That's Williams. As humble and down to earth as any sportsperson could possibly be.

I've been struck in recent weeks, especially when Williams went so close to glory in the first ranking tournament to be held in Saudi Arabia, how many people - including some players - have stated he is their hero.

In a way, he's all our hero isn't he? If you love this sport, how can you not treasure Mark J Williams?

Long may you beguile and entertain us, Mark. Truly, you're one of a kind.

Trump deserves high praise after stunning start to season

I've been one of the first, including on this website, to question Judd Trump's record in the sport's very biggest events.

So it's only right and proper that I offer fulsome praise when he delivers the goods. Boy is he doing that so far in the 2024-25 season.

First, he saw off Shaun Murphy to win July's prestigious Shanghai Masters title. Then he reached the Xi'an Grand Prix final last month, losing narrowly to Kyren Wilson.

And just two weeks ago, he produced a tremendous clearance under pressure to beat Williams in a deciding frame and claim victory in Saudi Arabia.

It's absolutely relentless stuff from Trump, who also helped himself to five tournaments last season. He's up to fourth place in the all-time list of ranking event winners.

Combine his generational talents with a now steely mentality and Trump is just a formidable presence in this sport. What a season he could have again.

Humble Higgins reaction to landmark moment so typical

What a lovely moment for Higgins to make his 1,000th century break in professional snooker during his meeting with Mark Allen at the English Open in Brentwood.

I don't think the reaction could have been more Higgins. Just small waves to the crowd, with something almost reluctant and shy about them.

One of the great Higgins qualities has always been his humility. There's nothing showy about the man, he lets the excellence of his snooker do the talking.

If Williams is right up there in the pantheon of greats in this sport, Higgins is even higher. An absolutely titanic player.

And this is a special landmark as he also closes in on turning 50. Hearty congratulations from us all, John.