{"id":8090,"date":"2023-01-17T08:40:16","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T08:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=8090"},"modified":"2023-01-22T21:52:31","modified_gmt":"2023-01-22T21:52:31","slug":"snooker-sullivan-vs-williams-23-masters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=8090","title":{"rendered":"SNOOKER: Sullivan vs Williams, \u201823 Masters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Ronnie seemed unstoppable.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t see half as much of the recent Masters Snooker tournament as I\u2019d have liked. But I did catch a few matches. Some, like the Trump vs Bingham semi, were quite dull. Even excruciating at times! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d heard the pundits mention that this one, O\u2019Sullivan vs Williams, was a good \u2018un. So I thought I\u2019d check it out. I wasn\u2019t disappointed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The best shot so far this afternoon\u2019, quoth Dennis Taylor, as Ronnie pocketed the above pictured long red, clean as the proverbial whistle. This quarter final clash of two snooker Titans, both legends in their own lifetimes, lived up to its billing. Quite a rare thing, I find. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Williams, as funny a player as this face suggests.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mark Williams is, as any Snooker fan will know, an oddball. Perhaps ironically, being one of the best \u2018single shot\u2019 snooker players ever makes him a formidable break builder. A lot of the time he favours floating the balls into the pockets, \u2018dead weight\u2019. And this slow measured approach means that sometimes you might forget how good his technique is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contrast with Ronnie\u2019s more attacking and aggressive flair makes for a great pairing. And both are super canny, and can, as Hendry likes to observe, be as hard as granite in freezing other players out. Both have superlative Snooker brains, often seeing things others wouldn\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This match was great. Perhaps the best of the tournament? Ronnie looked unbeatable at the outset. But Williams turned the tables on him. Both showed how, sometimes, just one mistake can be super costly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Williams took ages over this shot!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The match reached a final 11th frame decider, and – after a typically gonzo one-armed off the cushion shot (missed!) – Williams played the \u2018best shot in this wonderful match\u2019 (Taylor) – pictured above – which had Hendry frothing: \u2018magnificent, absolutely magnificent!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love Snooker. I find it very relaxing. And I particularly enjoy a really great match, like this: two players playing at the top of their game. Williams finished with a total clearance. Fab!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I didn\u2019t see half as much of the recent Masters Snooker tournament as I\u2019d have liked. But I did catch a few matches. Some, like the Trump vs Bingham semi, were quite dull. Even excruciating at times! I\u2019d heard the pundits mention that this one, O\u2019Sullivan vs Williams, was a good \u2018un. So I thought … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “SNOOKER: Sullivan vs Williams, \u201823 Masters”<\/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":[212,89,110,77,74,79,149,117],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-26u","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8090"}],"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=8090"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8118,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8090\/revisions\/8118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}