Snooker

Ronnie O’Sullivan secured his fourth Master’s title last night, in a thrilling finale that saw the Rocket and defending champion, Marc Selby, neck and neck at 8-8, engage in a nail-biting battle for the final three frames. Such was the closeness and tension between the combatants that the next two frames had to be re-racked to release the deadlock. True to form, Ronnie went on to coolly take the match, but not without a fight from his near equal, Selby, in what is already being described as the best snooker final ever in the Master’s competition.

Fellow snooker betting fans may join me in thinking it’s oddly ironical that we should have such a momentously exciting final in a week where Ronnie O’Sullivan has described the bigger snooker picture as terminally boring and needing the kind of revitalisation that, in his view, matches the glitz of the X Factor. Only a Simon Cowell can save the game and bring it back to its former glories, opines our Ronnie. Certainly, snooker is in crisis – money is short, with the tobacco companies forced to withdraw sponsorship, clubs are closing and the World Championship might be relocated to China. Like cricket, with the Twenty20 innovation, snooker needs to find a snappier version to accommodate the lower attention spans of people today. Having said that, it’s hard to see how you could shorten the game and up the excitement levels.

Personalities might be the answer. The snag is most sports like golf, snooker and bowls tend to attract players of, shall we say, a less than flamboyant nature. I don’t want to say boring but it’s difficult not to. You get the odd Higgins or White or O’Sullivan but that’s about it. The rest of them – well – they’re not going to set the place alight, are they?

Sad to say, the great days of snooker of the eighties and nineties may now be gone, never to return. The game will always have its place among the die-hard fans and sports betting enthusiasts but, as a popular, TV crowd-puller it may well have had its day.