Phill Gillespie’s Web Log at PhillG.com

Last week I texted Andy to find out his insider knowledge regarding the Snooker World Championships. He was down in Sheffield as part of the graphics team, his job is to turn the handles to make the scores rotate around. His assessment of the likely winners out of the four semi-finalists was as follows: “Ronnie is clearly the favourite but Ebdon has a great record against him as Ronnie doesn’t like the slow tactical matches. That said I’m Marco Fu’s lucky charm”. You’ll notice there was no mention of no-hoper Graeme Dott. Many people’s opinion, including Andy’s is that it was probably the worst final ever. Let me just give you a few quotes from the BBC’s frame by frame coverage: 4 - “neither player is at his best”, 6 - “It is slow going at The Crucible, and the players are dragged off two frames early”, 7 - “The match is getting bogged down”, 9 - “This frame is as scrappy as anything which has come before &lessth;snip&greaterth; Dott is not having to do anything special for a five-frame lead”, 14 - “In keeping with the generally substandard level of the match, it comes from a mistake”, 15 - “another error-ridden frame”, 20 - “Like a couple of chimps in London Zoo, Ebdon and Dott continue to scratch about as the match approaches the mid-session interval”, 22 - “Both play hit-and-hope escapes from snookers”, 27 - “The combatants go into the trenches for this one - an absolute ‘grueller’. &lessth;snip&greaterth; The frame, at 74 minutes, is the longest in Crucible history”, 31 - “The match has now drifted passed 0020 BST, the previous latest finish for a Crucible final - between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis in 1985″, 32 - “Dott finally stumbles over the line”. At least last year Shaun Murphy played some decent snooker!