After the drama of the world number one going out to an unseeded amateur, I watched Judd Trump go four-nil down to his older Thai opponent, Un Nooh. And now I’m watching two of snookers least charismatic players slugging it out at nine frames all.
In an interesting little article about how the BBC are wrecking TV sports coverage by changing the theme music from great originals to pale characterless modern imitations (e.g. the current snooker theme), the journo also bemoans the predominance of such ‘characterless bureaucrats’ as Graeme Dott in the modern game. Harsh!
But whilst ‘Beefy’ Bingham looks like a cabbie, and Dottie does indeed look like an accountant (in fact, he looks quite like my accountant!), they both prove themselves to have some character after all, in a match which first sees Bingham go eight-one ahead, then nine-four. And finally, after Dott takes five frames in a row, they’re at nine all.
Bingham eventually won. Just. For two rather colourless players, this was a surprisingly exciting game.