COUNTDOWN: Top 1st Round Crucible Shocks (PART 2)

Welcome to the second part of this lovely countdown. For those who decided to be sneaky and skip PART 1, what the devil are you doing? Please click on this link: COUNTDOWN: Top 1st Round Crucible Shocks (PART 1) go and sit in the corner and think about what you just did! 🙂

Anyway, I published PART 1 of this countdown yesterday, so hopefully, this will rise debate too. Unfortunately, Ronnie has taken every single limelight available in every paper so forcefully, Peter Ebdon’s “COME ON!” is nothing but a whimper in the wind. Still, I might as well try I suppose – the mystery between ROS and World Snooker isn’t going to be the debate that goes on throughout the tournament, is it? Is it?

5. Cao Yupeng vs. Mark Allen (10-6) (2012)

In the 2012 World Championships eight seeds got knocked out the first round, the highest number since 1992, so it seems appropriate that one of these shocks should be there. One of these shocks included a nightmare performance by Graeme Dott to lose 10-1 to a not-great Joe Perry, but I had to pick this one. Cao Yupeng was a complete unknown (ranked No.83) and was nowhere near close to the Top 16 but had to go through a couple of deciding bruisers against Dave Harold and Tom Ford. Even Mark Allen admitted that he was completely outplayed by him and underestimated him – Cao scored three +50 breaks and two centuries and acquitted himself rather well, while Allen bowed out in unfortunate fashion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKQ28Yu_J0U.

But it did not stop there, oh nooo my pretty, it did not! There was an incident was Cao was leading 6-5 when 10th seed Allen claimed Cao pushed the cue ball and failed to declare a foul on himself. Video footage proved inconclusive and Cao was too much in the zone to notice, but this didn’t stop Allen’s tirade of how “blatant cheating” might be “a bit of a trait for the Chinese players”, which Barry was forced to step in, slap a £10,000 fine and a three-month suspension on him and tell him to not be a naughty boy. Here is the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/snooker/18409812.

Cao was valiant in the next round, but was beaten 13-7 by then-unseeded Ryan Day. It never takes long for Mark Allen to spit that dummy back out, even after the vigorous media training!

4. Dechawat Poomjaeng vs. Stephen Maguire (10-9) (2013)

Probably one of my favourite matches, a lot of people was very bemused by the antics of, as John Parrott once called him, “The Mr. Bean of Thailand.” Very similar to Cao, largely unknown Dechawat (No. 70 in the rankings) became the only the third Thai player to qualify for the World Championships and even when he was 4-3 ahead of Maguire, Maguire was still at odds on to win. Perhaps it was Dechawat acting like a buffoon and a knave throughout the match that made his win shocking and memorable. While Poomjaeng was clowning around while applauding his own shots and spilling water everywhere and Michaela Tabb was giggling away, Stephen Maguire was becoming more agitated by his antics. Let’s not forget, Maguire was the 6th seed, reached the World Championship semi-finals the previous year, losing to Ali Carter 17-12. This became his first out four first-round losses in the World Championship.

Fortunately, Mr. Poomtastic was superb at holding himself together and for being positive in winning his decider. All that fell flat when he was thrashed by a very young Michael White 13-3 and even though he was forced to concede a frame by missing an open red three times, he still kept his sense of humour and entertained the crowd. For all of his loveliness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltPAJMzKwJU.

3. Stuart Bingham vs. Stephen Hendry (10-7) (2000)

This is regarded as one of the game’s biggest upsets. Stephen Hendry won his 7th World Championship and was very confident to getting his 8th. Since he won five in a row not long before, quite a lot of fans thought this is going to happen again. Unfortunately for him, the shock arrived in the form of 24 year-old, cherub-faced, No. 92 Stuart Bingham.

Bingham had only been a professional that season and like lower-ranked players had to battle through four qualifying rounds to get to the Crucible in the first place. Hendry had to come back in the first session from 4-2 down to 4-5 ahead. Then Bingham turned it up a gear by notching breaks of 51, 78, 70 and 95 to be 8-5 up and later to win 10-7. This back in the days when Stuart Bingham has some hair on his lovely head.

Hendry lamented his negative attitude of playing not to lose rather than playing to win, causing his safety to be horrendous and makign unforced errors. But he did praise Bingham for his excellent play. The two met each other again in 2012, when Hendry won 10-4 while scoring his 11th maximum in what turned out to be his last event.

2. Michael Wasley vs. Ding Junhui (10-9) (2014)

Here’s the premise. You defeat Rob Milkins on the final black in your final qualifying match. You are drawn with Ding Junhui, the 4^th seed who won five ranking tournaments in six finals in a single season, equalling the record of the legend Stephen Hendry and becoming the first player since 1990 to win three consecutive ranking events.. Maybe this is finally the time when the Chinaman gets hold of the trophy at the Crucible? You are then 6-3 behind after the first session. SURELY you’re done?

Nononononono, one forgets that the Crucible is not predictable like any Hugh Grant movie. This match is considered to be one of the greatest shocks of the modern era, because Ding was in such fiery form (this was hotly debated!) but No. 75 Michael Wasley pulled it out of the bag when it really mattered, even when behind 9-8. The final frame was seriously dramatic – despite fluking the final red, Wasley had to escape from three consecutive snookers on the final pink when the resilient Ding refused to give up. Ding said that he played very well – perhaps struggling under pressure of being one of the favourites.

I would really recommend watching this – starts on the 56-minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-axKMYfAUE

This was such a massive shock to the system for the entire tournament. You can say this is a perfect advert for how best-of-19 match can provide us with more twists and turns than The Walking Dead. That is why we love long matches!

1.  Tony Knowles vs. Steve Davis (10-1) (1982)

Can’t leave this out can I?

Steve Davis just won the World Championship the previous year and looked invincible and destined for dominance. His opponent Tony Knowles has no such pedigree and lost in his only Crucible appearance against Graham Miles in 1981. So no one expected Knowles to lead 4-0 before the first interval, lead 8-1 to finish the first session and to complete the trashing by winning 10-1 the next day. But that’s exactly what happened to the delight of Alex Higgins, and Davis couldn’t muster even a 50+ break.

So why is this the biggest Crucible shock more than the others? Nobody saw this coming. This was the time when Davis and Terry Griffiths were dominating the game as the best players on the circuit, despite their rankings. Nor was it a fluke, since Knowles went on to the quarter-finals that year and provided him a launchpad to win two ranking events. But to see a first-time defending champion destined for great things getting thumped so badly was unheard of. Little did they know at the time, but this started the trend of many first-time champions failing to defend their title, now known as the “Crucible Curse.”