Neil Robertson aims to be snooker role model

Robertson has jetted out to Oslo to show the Betfred.com World Championship trophy to his Norwegian girlfriend, Mille, who is due to give birth any day now. But before he departed he was keen to savour his victory against Scotland's Graeme Dott.

Robertson knocked out three Englishmen en route to the final, including six-time winner Steve Davis, and said: "England can have the Ashes at the moment, I'll have the World Snooker Championship. It's another sport we've become a world champion at, and hopefully I won't be the last Aussie to do it."

The 28-year-old knows he will be expected to be squeaky clean and the man every player will look up to during his year as world champion.

"It's definitely something I was aware of before this final," Robertson said. "I think it's the case not just in snooker. You've got Roger Federer in tennis and people like that, and before he was the champion he became he was pretty temperamental. I don't have that in my game.

"I think I'm a pretty calm kind of guy. Obviously there's a lot of added responsibility now, not just here but for the people back home as well. I've probably been dealing with it anyway because I've been representing Australia, and if there was any hope of more Australian players coming through I had to have a good reputation.

"That's definitely important and it's something I'm going to have to handle. Barry Hearn can probably pull me aside and give me some coaching on it. It's a really big responsibility and it comes with the package."

Hearn, as chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, formally suspended last year's world champion John Higgins from all WPBSA tournaments following newspaper allegations on Sunday. Higgins strongly denies the allegations that he agreed to throw frames in return for payment and has vowed to clear his name.

The News of the World's story shocked Robertson on the first day of the final. "You would be lying if you said you weren't surprised," he said. But he was determined not to let the story trouble him as he went into the biggest match of his life, and insisted that on a personal level it did not overshadow the final.

"Not to me at all," Robertson said. "This is all about me and my country, and all the people back home. What happened with John Higgins won't overshadow this at all back home. They won't talk about it, it'll be all about this."

Robertson climbed to number two in the world rankings on the back of his 18-13 victory against Dott, which was secured at 12.54am yesterday morning.

He is hoping Higgins is cleared, and would rather claim the number one spot on merit, rather than by default if the 34-year-old Scot was to be banned. "Being world number one would be fantastic but you'd like to do it by you finishing the year as number one without anything happening off the table to somebody else's ranking," Robertson said. "It's obviously not going to make it more enjoyable or anything like that."

Fatherhood will be another new experience for Robertson, and he was looking forward to seeing Mille.

"I am any minute or any day away now (from becoming a father)," he said. "It's just the icing on the cake. She will have been watching (the final) for sure. I was thinking there's no way in the world the snooker gods are going to allow me to be world champion and then a dad a few days after, it's just not going to happen. But it's absolutely incredible, an amazing feeling. I'm sure I'm going to go through a few emotions over the next week or so as well."

As for booking flights to Norway yesterday, Robertson said: "That's already been done, I'm going to go out there today. It's a completely different thing altogether. Completely different for personal reasons. This is a really big accomplishment so I don't know how I'm going to react to that at the moment."

Robertson believes the late finish to the final was unnecessary, and questioned the scheduling. On the concluding day, only six of the scheduled eight frames could be slotted into the afternoon action which began after 3pm, and there were a potential 13 to be fitted into the evening session, which started after 8pm.

"In my personal opinion I think the final and semi-finals go on for a little too long, they could probably reduce it a little bit," Robertson said.

"It's a format which can be hit and miss. It was quite a late finish and a tough gruelling match. In my opinion making the final a first-to-15 match is enough. I think it could be shortened down a little bit so you could have a much earlier finish. It's very tough on the players. It's very tiring." Robertson now believes snooker can take off in Australia, and hopes the country can stage some high-profile events. The World Championship was staged in Melbourne in 1975, however there have been few major events in the country since then.

"I've got a lot of work ahead of me to try to make the most of this with Australia," Robertson said. "We have been close to staging tournaments, money hasn't been quite there and perhaps all that was missing was the promoters back home didn't have a world champion. Now that's happened, hopefully something can happen now."

'STEADY EDDIE'

NEIL Robertson did what his famous compatriot Eddie Charlton tried desperately hard, but failed to do, by winning the world snooker championship. Charlton, nicknamed, 'Steady Eddie' reached the world final in 1968 and 1973, losing both, but thought his moment had arrived in 1975 when everything appeared to be falling nicely in his favour.

The World Championships was hosted in his homeland, (to this day the last time it has been played outwith the UK) and was organised by... Eddie Charlton promotions.

With Ray Reardon, John Spencer and a young Alex Higgins in the top half of the draw, Charlton glided through the other half to reach the first-to-31 frames final. Reardon, who beat Spencer in a thrilling quarter-final, then Higgins in the semi-final, trailed the Australian 29-23, and Charlton appeared to have one hand on the elusive trophy. However, Reardon won seven frames on the spin to lead 30-29. Charlton levelled to force a decider, but the Welshman held his nerve to deny him the title.

Charlton, who died in 2004 at the age of 75, at least found success in the hugely popular BBC competition Pot Black, and also won the World Matchplay in 1976, but his failure to capture the sport's biggest prize always rankled with him.

Finally, Robertson has ensured an Australian name is etched on the trophy.