Spotting the pink
The World Snooker Championship this year has certainly been entertaining. Newcomer Liang Wenbo’s marathon 13-12 victory over Joe Swail proved to be a tense finish after the youngster made a number of rash errors (deserved of his “Kamikaze Kid” nickname) to allow Joe Swail to creep back from 12-8. Should he win the competition he may vie with Stephen Hendry for the title of youngest player to win the title, though it seems unlikely that he will overcome his erratic and gung-ho moments in time. Hendry, however, certainly seems to have found some new form of late. He currently leads comfortably over Ryan Day in the quarter finals, and would face either Liang Wenbo or Ronnie O’Sullivan in the semis, currently level at 4 frames apiece. Nevertheless, yesterday O’Sullivan pulled out a maximum break to set the competition alight, his record ninth career maximum, and third at the Crucible.
In response, today saw maximum attempts from Stephen Hendry, ending at 112 after some tricky shots to keep the break going, Peter Ebdon, who missed the fifteenth black for a 113 break, and Ali Carter, whose first career maximum makes this the first time two have been scored in the same tournament. With six days still to go the potential is there for a third maximum in the tournament, which sponsors 888.com had originally offered odds of 200:1 – these have dwindled down to 7:4!