888.com World Snooker Championship 2006

I'm just going to do a one part review this year. Nigel Bond beat Stephen Hendry on a respotted black and Mark Selby beat John Higgins in the shocks of the first round. Ryan Day had a good chance of beating Ronnie O'Sullivan in the second round but miscued and lost 13-9. Rob and I went to see eight frames of Matthew Stevens and Ken Doherty which were ok but nothing spectacular yet this was the 2nd best 2nd round match. Doherty missed the black completely to end the session in humourous fashion. He went on to take the match 13-8.

Mark Williams lost 13-11 to O'Sullivan in the quarter finals which also saw defending champion Shaun Murphy get beaten by Peter Ebdon. Wood's mum's friend got some free tickets from Highland Spring Water where she works and we saw the final session of the Ebdon v Fu semi final. It started 15-9 to Ebdon but Fu played well to bring it level. Ebdon then led only to be pegged back again and then Ebdon took the final frame in a very tense and exciting session of snooker. Earlier that morning O'Sullivan lost all eight frames to Graeme Dott and eventually lost 17-11.

In his interview after the game Dott was asked what the public could expect from the final. His reply was something like, "Well we are both determined and gritty players so it will probably be very boring!" He was spot on. I got bored watching on TV so tuned in online while playing poker. This meant playing poker a lot but profit was made so that's all good. The final was the longest ever and included the longest ever frame at The Crucible. Dott went into the last session 15-7 up and despite an Ebdon comeback, won 18-14 in the latest ever finish at 12:53am. Therefore i'm tired now.

On the whole the championship was low in quality and while some players were bemoaning the drop in prize money, surely the quality shown this year was not worthy of the prize money of previous years. The number of century breaks was the lowest since the mid 90s, and the quality of the final must have been a real turn off for many part time fans. It's no wonder the sport struggles to find sponsors and at this rate I predict a bleak few years ahead. However with many young players on the verge of greatness it's only a matter of time before the glory days will be restored. The good things to come out of the championship are in my next post.