2025 World Championships

I am enjoying it. It was just a question….

Looks like you are correct score wise so far. Williams not tuned in at all so far though. Xintong not doing anything spectacular.

6-1.

When your luck is in, it's in. Zhao plays a red to the bottom left hand corner at the beginning of the next frame. It misses, but comes across and goes in the opposite corner. It only leads to 8 points though.

7-1 after the first session. Those big wigs I mentioned earlier might not need to polish the chains if this keeps going on this way.

It could’ve and should’ve been 2-2 before the mid session interval.

I don't think that record will ever be bettered, or worse-d, depending how you look at it.

probably a bit premature at this stage. We hope anyway…

I remember Ronnie saying about 6 years ago the only reason he was still winning was because there was nobody coming up through the ranks as a younger player. The class of 92 are still playing because of that very reason. What's happening to Williams today is of no surprise to me. I'm 50 myself and competitive sport is a young man's game! That's a fact of life. Yes you can still be competitive and enjoy yourself perhaps even more, but expect to be beaten by youth.

The bigger story is as Ronnie suggested, nobody outside of the Chinese is playing the game anymore! That's what needs attention not Hazel's shock and awe that a 50 year old is losing to a guy in his 20s

He was very short for a qualifier at 25/1 going into the qualifying rounds. After his 1st round match proper he was already down to 8/1.

I know it is a feature of the commentators to say the crowd is very knowledgeable, but you get the feeling they are waiting for the commentator to tell them if it was a good shot these days. There have been a few instances where you have seen premature claps for average shots and you rarely see the crowd clapping a good shot these days before being told it was good.

At least I remember it being done more in the past without the commentators in the ears and without prompting from them…am I wrong?

Does Xintong keep his money as an “amateur”?

Good question. Is he really an amateur?

My memory is it used to happen a lot more before…maybe I have been wrong with the sessions I was watching as well. There is a definite bias towards the home players as well though…and then within that you have the likes of O'Sullivan being more favoured than other local players if they play each other as well. In any case, I do not see how the 50 year old will do with the pressure. There is a reason why in the past 50 year olds have not dominated sports and I think it may tell in the final.

F###### hell! Who let John Virgo out of the basement?

Couple of poor decisions there gives a chance to Mark to put some frames on the board could get a bit nervy .

Shaun and not a Parrot(t).