THE year (2001) belonged to Ronnie O'Sullivan. And what a year it was for him. The taste of that sweet lingering aroma of his maiden world title which he won in May was still fresh as he got up to accept WPBSA's player of the year award during a dinner at the Marriott Hotel in Preston recently.
The original World Snooker Awards Lunch, due to be held at London's Cafi Royal in September, was cancelled as a mark of respect to the victims of the terrorist attacks in the United States of America.
Nobody grudged him this honour and award. After all it was the year that the 25-year-old cueist converted the authentic talent into trophies, winning six titles in total. The trauma, grief and depression, which became part of his everyday existence after his father was sentenced to life imprisonment, were dramatically converted to unbridled joy with that historic victory in May at the Crucible Theatre when he defeated John Higgins in the final of the Embassy World Snooker Championship.
That victory honed and channelised the pent up emotion and mental aggression that had prevented him from achieving his potential. Overnight, he became more patient, more tolerant and was willing to wait and play the game with composure and self-control. Suddenly, he was agreeable to winning fragmentary frames in addition to the ones, which he won with panache, and genius, which flow from his cue. This transformation saw him capturing the Champions Cup, Regal Masters, China Open, Citiwest Irish Masters and the Sportingbet.co.uk Premier League in addition to the world championship.
In winning the Embassy World Snooker championship with an 18-14 victory over Higgins, he also fulfilled a goal, which was set when he made his first century as a ten year old. The authentic talent, the sparkling effervescence and the genius of this 25 year old have been often threatened with the trauma and turmoil of an insecure mind, which has had to come to terms with the sudden and unfortunate conviction of his father, who is serving life for killing a man in a nightclub brawl. But on that Monday night in May at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, when he held aloft the world trophy, the talent at last found fulfillment. The unpredictability and volatile mood swings were firmly put aside in the inner mind, where hopefully they will lie dormant.
Having seen the heights of success as a teenager - he became the youngest winner of the U.K. Championship at 17 years 11 months - he had experienced the lows which came during one of his depressions, which made him withdraw from a ranking tournament. The world title provided him with the one trophy, which had eluded him. This gave him the one missing piece in a puzzle, with which he re-arranged other pieces of sanity and genius into their respective slots, to complete a picture, which is now ready to be hung in the gallery of greats.
It was also a year, which saw Ken Doherty, who recorded 14 successive victories in world ranking tournaments last season, winning the Thailand Masters and Regal Welsh. The former world champion's name was also nominated for the player of the year award, as was Peter Ebdon's, who won the British Open and Regal Scottish Open. But the decision of the committee in O'Sullivan's favour was unanimous.
Stephen Hendry's 13-5 elimination from the quarterfinal of the world championship raised serious doubts about the former seven time world champion's longevity in the sport. Outclassed and outplayed in every department of the game, he has for the first time in his recent career, gone through an entire season without a tournament victory. In an intensely demanding era, Hendry (32) was the second oldest competitor after John Parrott.
Shaun Murphy, who regained his place on the Main Tour by finishing top of the Challenge Tour Order of Merit, winning the last two events, was named Newcomer of the Year. The 19-year-old from Irthlingborough also won the Benson & Hedges Snooker championship, beating Stuart Bingham 9-7 in the final to earn a wild card entry to the Benson & Hedges Masters.
Paul Hunter, who came from 7-3 down to defeat Fergal O'Brien 10-9 in the final of the Benson & Hedges Masters at Wembley carried off the award for the Performance of the Year. That match, which concluded after midnight, held over 4 million BBC viewers captive.
From the Indian perspective, Yasin Merchant's 8-4 victory over China's Jin Long in the final of the Asian Snooker championship was cause for much cheer. Despite the talent, which we possess, we have never been able to perform consistently at the international arena. Merchant, who ventured into the professional ranks and achieved reasonable success in the U.K. (he was ranked 65 in 1995) has been our torchbearer in the world of international snooker ever since he won his first Asian Snooker title in 1989.
When the 34-year-old relinquished his professional status after being ranked as high as 65 in the world rankings at one stage, projections of a semi-retired role for him were not unjustified. He played competitive snooker sporadically for the last three years and yet managed to win the national snooker crown in January this year. The victory in the nationals reflects a curious and perhaps alarming state of the general standards of the game on the one hand and Merchant's own highly competitive nature and unquestionable talent on the other. But the recent victory has once again infused in him an interest in the game and hopefully, the disciplined and committed Merchant will be able to bring India its first snooker medal at the Asian Games next year.
His successor has already been identified in the form of Manan Chandra. This 20-year-old from Delhi did the country proud by reaching the final of the Junior under 21 world snooker championship. Having already won the junior national snooker crown three times, his recent form suggests that he will be the one pushing Merchant for the national snooker title in January 2002. His ability to adapt to Pool and Carom bole makes him an all rounder who the country will bank upon to make an impact in the 2002 Asian Games.
Professional billiards players had the opportunity to participate in two world championships. In April, Peter Gilchrist won the World Professional Billiards championship organised by Mega Ace at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai. The tall cueist edged out Mike Russell in the final.
In September the International Billiards & Snooker Federation held the World Open in Christchurch, which allowed professionals and amateurs to participate together in an event, which threw up a very high standard.
Professional billiards has traditionally used the knock out format for all their events but the IBSF Rockpool World Billiards championship was played under a round robin cum knock out format. This allows the players extensive use of the tables and by the time they reached the knock out stage, they had been exposed to 20 hours of competitive billiards.
In what proved to be a memorable final, I compiled breaks of 856 & 636 in the second two-hour session of the six-hour contest to lift the Rockpool IBSF World Billiards championship defeating Ashok Shandilya 3484-1289. This was my seventh world title and in terms of the standard of play, I had played this well only once before - in the 1992 world professional championship where I made breaks of 1276 and 864.
The second two-hour session in the final also enabled me to surpass Michael Ferreira's world record for the highest two-hour session average of 246. In accumulating 1490 points in six visits I averaged 248 per visit edging Ferreira's record by two points.
This win was particularly satisfying for me despite the absence of Mike Russell and Peter Gilchrist, because it came after a gap of three years and because of the new benchmarks that I established in the game.
Having gone through a period of three or four years wherein I suffered from a severe lack of enthusiasm, I received some advise from A. Parthasarthy, a great philosopher and author of the Vedanta Treatise. Just two weeks prior to leaving for New Zealand I went to meet him at his house in Mumbai. That advice changed my perspective and injected me with the much-needed zest for the game again. "Play not for yourself but for the country. Eliminate all personal agendas and view yourself as someone who can bring glory to the country," he said in his matter of fact manner. These words made a big impact on me. I felt re-motivated and recharged and this reflected so positively on my game.
From the Indian point of view, the performance of the Indian contingent was thrilling with Ashok Shandilya reaching the final and Devendra Joshi, the current national champion reaching the semifinal. Also heartening was the emergence of Dhruv Sitwala as a competent, disciplined and committed cueist. The 28-year-old, who plays for the Railways impressed one and all with his easy fluent style and the two 400+ breaks which he compiled in the tournament.
However, at the professional platform, there is much need for improvement in our performances. We were unable to win any event in the year and our best performance came in the recent U.K. Billiards championship wherein Nalin Patel and myself reached the semifinals.
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