Tuesday morning and in the cafes of Sheffield’s Millennium Square talk was still of snooker. “I caught the end, quite exciting wasn’t it!” went one conversation starter, which was quite effusive for Yorkshire.
The previous night, at about 9.50, Mark Williams had channelled calm in the most pressured of moments at the Crucible to win his 18th frame against John Higgins. In the process the Welshman won his third world championship, 15 years after his second, the longest gap in the tournament’s history.
It was quite a final, an unexpectedly tense, competitive and thrilling match that put to bed any talk of an underwhelming championship. Barry Hearn would never hint at any such anxiety but the way the impresario stormed into the press area to announce Williams – “Cameras at the back! Naked world champion at the front!” – suggested he knew he had a story on his hands.
Williams was an outside bet throughout the 17 days of the tournament, he was a champion so unlikely he jokingly promised early in the competition that he would turn up naked to the post-final press conference should he win – and then delivered on the pledge.
When his semi-final against Barry Hawkins finished at midnight on Saturday it was expected the 43-year-old, suddenly bouncing back after so long in obscurity, would fade horribly against the perennial competitor Higgins. Instead Williams’s languid, almost sleepy demeanour proved to be an asset.
He stayed calm throughout the final, riding his moments of good form, not dwelling on the bad. He also played some outstanding shots, especially in the closing frames, with the red that opened his final break likely to haunt Higgins for some time. From the other side the Scot was indefatigable, coming back from 4-0 down to 7-7, and from 14-7 to 15-15.
So the story is the class of 92 rolled back the clock. Williams, who became the oldest world champion since Ray Reardon won in 1978 as a 45-year-old, certainly celebrated like a man two decades younger. Throughout the early hours his Twitter feed declared his determination to keep drinking (though he has also changed his biography to include three trophy emojis). But as his body will no doubt tell him on sobering up, this cannot go on for ever.
With Mark Selby knocked out in the opening round and Ronnie O’Sullivan defenestrated in the second, the championship provided a chance for snooker’s 20-somethings to step up. They did not take it. Kyren Wilson made the semi-finals but was kept at arm’s length by the 42-year-old Higgins, who also took care of Judd Trump in the previous round.
Hearn used the occasion of the final to criticise the younger generation, saying: “Kids today are soft and getting softer. If I was a player who hadn’t won the world title I’d be spending a long time looking in the mirror and saying: ‘Why?’”
How long can a middle-aged resurgence hold off the millennials? “The younger players will look at this and think they have another 15 years of coming back here, trying to win it,” Higgins said. That may be true. Unfortunately, next year Williams and Higgins have promised they will still be there waiting for them.
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