Anthony McGill has become the second player to win multiple titles after Mark Selby this season, beating second-time finalist Xiao Guodong 67-19 in the Snooker Shoot-Out with a 67 break.
Despite never going past the second round of the six-year-old tournament, McGill withstood the pressures of the cutthroat event and the raucous of the lively crowds to beat a very decent line-up of players in Northern Ireland Open winner Mark King, German Masters winner Anthony Hamilton and former World Champion Shaun Murphy before reaching the final. He took control of a lightning-quick table with nerves of steel and finally showed his first signs of emotion by punching the air after shaking hands with Xiao and the referee. This win also means he is in the Players Championship in Llandudno as well as next year’s Champion of Champions and breaking into the Top 16 for the first time.
The event has turned out to be a lovely success, with the newly-made ranking event still retaining the relaxed feel that allowed players to animatedly express themselves. We have seen Dechawat Poomjaeng making a fool of himself again. We have also seen many players getting involved with the crowd and cheering continuously, such as Chinese Zhang Yong and Pakistani Hamza Akbar. We have seen many shocks in the tournament too, with Akbar coming back to beat Stuart Bingham, amateur Andy Hicks reaching his first semi-final since 1996, amateur Steven Hallworth making his first ranking quarter-final appearance and Barry Hawkins losing to Eden Sharav.
This means that there is still no Top 16 player who has won the trophy, nor has there been a second-time winner of the Snooker Shoot-Out. Though there were no centuries in the event, there were 26 +50 breaks, the highest by Graeme Dott (96) against Mitchell Mann. The organisation of the tournament was excellent and the commentating team of Alan McManus, Clive Everton and Neal Foulds as well as presenter Jill Douglas were very informative and professional. I really liked the idea of hearing the interview with the victor of the previous match during the next one too.
The Snooker Shoot-Out: An evaluation
For those who believe Brexit is actually a campaign for the abolition of breakfasts, the Snooker Shoot-Out was controversially made into a ranking tournament, with the idea of reaching out to new audiences and for being more suitable for television in Barry Hearn’s eyes. Many were worried about its ranking status: because it isn’t snooker rules; they put far less effort compared to other tournaments; a number of points given is too much; it’s not prestigious enough to even be considered one… – that sort of thing.
Do I like the tournament? Yes. Am I okay about amateurs being in the event? Yes, actually. Am I okay about how much ranking points players get in the first couple of rounds? Yes. Do the winner and runners-up deserve 32,000 and 16,000 points respectively? No. Should it be a ranking event? No, I’m afraid my opinion has not changed. Will the awarded points make any difference? We will find out before the Crucible is it does. Without being repetitive, here are my reasons: https://clusterofredssnookerblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/21/featured-should-snooker-shoot-out-ever-be-a-ranking-event/ Hilariously, McGill even admitted in his post-match interview describing the Shoo-Out as a “coin-toss tournament” and that there is “no way on God’s earth should it be a ranking event… it’s not even snooker rules, but I’ll take it!” Some players, including Mark Williams, were expressing discontent of it being a ranking event.
Unfortunately, I have to talk about this unfortunate error that tainted this Shoot-Out. Xiao was in a middle of the break against David Gilbert when on one particular shot, he was three seconds over his 10-second limit. The 10-second shot clock would be in operation after the 5th minute of the match from 15 seconds. This was no fault on his part, simply because he was so immersed that he either took no notice or didn’t want to stop his rhythm (though one could argue, maybe he should own up to it, I’m not sure). What is amazing is that the referee did not penalise him for this. He claimed that he couldn’t hear the large beeps to signal over-time and of course, play carried on, much to Gilbert’s frustration and the perplexed commentators. You can see the full match on this link (incident on 9:30): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvMlP7Khq0Y.
This was an awful mistake by the referee, mainly because it was his job to monitor the time as well as the position of the snooker player. If he called a foul on Xiao within shoot-out rules, Gilbert would be almost certain to win with a ball in hand (meaning he can place the cue ball anyway on the table) and win at least £8,000 than £4,000, with the potential of winning the tournament with £32,000. The hashtag #ClockIsTicking has never been more ironic, especially when everyone knew of this mistake except the referee and Gilbert was trying in intervene by protesting, shouting and waving his arms. If this happened to Drago, there would probably be blood on the carpet! According to the World Snooker twitter account:
This, unfortunately, feeds fuel into the fire of whether it should be a ranking event. Now that it is, everything has to be of the highest standards, including tables, refereeing, the works. This means that the Shoot-Out has to meet these standards and many players such as Robertson and Trump were aghast as to why there was no reply to remedy that mistake. How can this be sorted out in future? An extra timekeeper? Louder alerts? An earpiece? To be fair, there needs to be better crowd control so that the referee can get on with his job as well as the snooker players, especially the ‘yellow brigade.’ Clearly, the crowd need to be more respectful towards those responsible and though have a lovely time but not to be distracting so these things do not happen again. Does the lack of professionalism and efficiency warrant its status of a ranking event? I don’t know. Barry Hearn and Jason Ferguson expressed remorse over this entire situation to David on Twitter but this is potentially destroying a chance for close a gap between him to Top 16.
Despite all of this, all of the players were having a damn good time, as well as the players. Though the tournament had an excellent, the controversy will live on. But it is the best player of the tournament who won it, and it is Anthony McGill. He will take his form to the Winners’ Group of Championship League, which be played after Group 7. Coincidentally, David will also be in the Winners’ Group. He’ll be there in a few seconds…. oh. 😉
