{"id":5350,"date":"2022-05-02T12:44:04","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T12:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=5350"},"modified":"2024-02-08T09:39:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T09:39:31","slug":"media-masters-snooker-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=5350","title":{"rendered":"SPORTS\/MEDiA: Snooker World Championship Final, 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Who\u2019d want to referee an O\u2019Sullivan match!?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a little bit sad to say this, but perhaps the most interesting things to happen so far, in the much-hyped Trump vs. O\u2019Sullivan \u201822 World Championship snooker final, might be the spats \u2018twixt O\u2019Sullivan and Belgian ref\u2019 Olivier Marteel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The match itself has been a bit one-sided. Trump being rather dominated by O\u2019Sullivan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What caused the latter of the incidents is not altogether clear. The first was totally cut and dried, and arose when Ronnie wasn\u2019t happy with Martel\u2019s replacement of the white. Marteel was in the right, as the cameras very clearly showed. But he rather politely and somewhat meekly allowed O\u2019Sullivan to bully him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
O\u2019Sullivan suggests Marteel try taking the shot.*<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The next time – apparently in relation to a hand gesture Marteel thought Ronnie made – O\u2019Sullivan suggested, rather ironically, that Marteel check the cameras (doing so in the first instance categorically showed Ronnie to be in the wrong!). Add to this that Ronnie is already under official investigation for a allegedly similar incident in another recent match\u2026 well, Ronnie looks bad in all this. At least to my eyes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not as if he\u2019s a stranger to getting shirty with refs. I\u2019ve seen him do it to Marcel Eckardt as well. When he gets like that, I think \u2018you conceited prick; get on with your job, and let the referee do likewise\u2019!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can also recall a time when he had a go at Mark Allen, and Allen commented after the match, \u2018Ronnie just tries to bully people out there and I wasn\u2019t having any of it.\u2019 Well, yes, that\u2019s what it looks like to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Two titans of the green baize game.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s the shoulder barge thing with Ali Carter in 2018. Who\u2019s the recurring character in all these incidents? Can you think of any other snooker player linked to so many spats? Maybe Alex Higgins? But he had the \u2018excuse\u2019 of being an old school pool-hall hustling alcoholic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope Trump makes a comeback. In fact, for reasons of karma, I hope he beats O\u2019Sullivan, as did Ali Carter in that 2018 confrontation. That didn\u2019t look very likely at the point where I started writing this post. Nor does it based on form coming to this point, either. Ronnie\u2019s firm favourite any<\/em> way you slice it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Trump has fought back this afternoon, taking the first three frames. Yay! Keep it up. I feel for Marteel! Who\u2019d want to do his job when Ronnie\u2019s in of his moods?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* I\u2019d suggest Ronnie should try a spell refereeing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

POSTSCRIPT <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, Ronnie won, convincingly. And it seemed pretty inevitable. So not the most thrilling of snooker matches! It was quite nice to see how moved Ronnie was, at the end. A tearful embrace with Trump almost got a bit weird, it was so prolonged!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s a funny fish. No two ways about that. But, as Hendry observed, he\u2019s taking the game to other levels, and is an artist. So an odd character seems fitting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a little bit sad to say this, but perhaps the most interesting things to happen so far, in the much-hyped Trump vs. O\u2019Sullivan \u201822 World Championship snooker final, might be the spats \u2018twixt O\u2019Sullivan and Belgian ref\u2019 Olivier Marteel. The match itself has been a bit one-sided. Trump being rather dominated by O\u2019Sullivan. What … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “SPORTS\/MEDiA: Snooker World Championship Final, 2022”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[74,79],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-1oi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5350"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11524,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350\/revisions\/11524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}