Tuesday 6th May

As you can guess I am writing this on Monday – afternoon as it happens and Ronnie is in trouble.  It is a totally different game than last night when Ronnie coasted into at first a five frame lead before being pegged back to just three.  We should have known then that Selby was no pushover, in fact he has hung on with tenacity and courage and has this afternoon turned the tables on Ronnie and is in the lead.  Ronnie can’t seem to settle down and play his own game, he is constantly on the defensive as the jester from Leicester keeps putting him in trouble.  And there are signs that Ronnie is losing it, he is looking vacant when he is in his seat, and when he comes to the table he tries something reckless.  It is almost as if he wants to lose each frame.

Ronnie is possibly the most talented player to ever pick up a snooker cue.  Steve Davis was a master but has admitted that he had to work very hard at his game.  Then along came Stephen Hendry, a snotty-nosed detestable little upstart, but he seemed to carry all before him and currently holds the record of seven World titles, but even he has lost faith with his own inner self and has now retired at a younger age than Ronnie.  Ronnie is more in the mould of Jimmy White and Alec Higgins, brilliant when on top but deeply troubled and emotional.  He has been through severe depressions and family troubles including a separation from his wife and children, but he kept bouncing back and seemed until today to have that inner lack of self-belief under control.

This must be one of the hardest games to play.  It is such a marathon, and the tide can swing both ways in a matter of minutes.  Even the best players can miss seemingly easy shots, and there is so much luck when you least expect it.  I think that this is what makes Sport so exciting; if it were simply a matter of the best person winning we wouldn’t want to watch.  It is that combination of talent and circumstances and their own mental processes which makes Sport so fascinating.  At the moment I hardly dare watch as I am afraid that Ronnie will go to pieces, but then you never know….