Snooker: Williams feels fury of crowd after Crucible Twitter tirade

Mark Williams faced the music after his foul-mouthed tirade against the Crucible when he was booed by hundreds of snooker fans yesterday before his match against Liu Chuang.

The 37-year-old Welshman appeared chastened by the crowd’s reaction as he walked into the arena for his first-round clash at the Betfred.com World Championship.

Williams, world champion in 2000 and 2003, condemned the Sheffield theatre as a “s***hole” in a Twitter tirade on the eve of the tournament last Friday, for which he is certain to be fined. Williams said he hoped the tournament would move to China.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

His comments were described as “absolute lunacy” by World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn, and at least a quarter of the audience announced their disgust when Williams strode out yesterday. Referee Olivier Marteel had to hush the crowd to allow MC Rob Walker to introduce Williams’ compatriot Dominic Dale, who was taking on Judd Trump on the other table.

Williams then dropped the opening frame to Liu, before hauling himself level and going on to build up a 6-3 lead, aided by breaks of 72 and 111 in the final two frames.

The morning crowd were also central to the story of Chinese potter Ding Junhui’s defeat at the hands of Ryan Day, another Welshman.

Ding accused fans of disrupting his concentration by calling out at key points, although it appeared the player, who reached last year’s semi-finals, only had himself to blame for letting a 9-6 lead slip away to lose 10-9. Ding said: “It was all rubbish. I don’t think I played well. I don’t think the table’s right. I don’t think the fans are right. All rubbish. Rubbish fans. I was concentrating on the game and they kept shouting out. How can they do that? People say that Chinese fans are no good. Okay, but then I come here and what do they do?”

Ding became the seventh of the 16 seeds to bow out of the tournament, as former world No  6 Day took advantage of an unexpected chance in the final frame, when his opponent seemed certain to clear up.

The 32-year-old from Bridgend seemed to have thrown away all his good work with one shot, taking on a long pot but missing it by a margin and scattering the reds. Sheffield-based 25-year-old Ding missed a red with the rest after reaching 48. It was a battle of nerves and Ding’s had failed him. Day, now 35th in the world, was quickly out of his seat and a superb break of 64 gave him the match. Asked about Ding’s criticism of the crowd, Day said: “I didn’t think there was any calling out at the wrong time.

“Obviously with a match like that everyone who is watching gets right behind the person they want to win, and I didn’t notice there was any calling out at the wrong time.”

Earlier, Scotland’s world No  9 Graeme Dott admitted the worst defeat of his career left him briefly tempted to “chuck it”.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The 34-year-old, a veteran of three Crucible finals and champion in 2006, slumped to a 10-1 defeat against Joe Perry. Dott said: “If there was ever a nightmare in snooker, that was it.

“I don’t feel I can turn it around just now. I feel as if I need to chuck it if I’m playing as badly as that. I’m sure I’ll come back and play okay again, but I’ve no idea why I played as bad as that.

“I just wanted out. I couldn’t pot a ball, I couldn’t hit the white. If you told me to hit the white in the last frame I’d have probably missed it.”

Cambridgeshire’s Perry, 37, goes on to play Glaswegian Stephen Maguire in the last 16.

Judd Trump also made progress yesterday, overcoming illness to win his first-round match against Dominic Dale 10-7. Trump, 22, has been suffering with apparent food poisoning since eating a chicken dish on Monday evening. With the seeds scattering in Sheffield, Trump’s prospects of justifying his pre-tournament status as the title favourite look to be improving by the day. So too is his health, with Trump reporting he felt “a hundred times better” yesterday than he was in the opening session. “It started on Monday night, about an hour after I ate. And then I woke up sweating in the night, and I was being sick at eight in the morning, until half past nine,” he explained.

His match began at 10am, so there were doubts, at least in Trump’s mind, about whether he could perform. Asked how close he came to pulling out, Trump said: “The closest I’ve ever been in a professional tournament. If it was a smaller event I maybe wouldn’t have played. I haven’t eaten properly for two days.”

Ali Carter seems certain to avoid becoming a ninth seeded casualty after pulling 8-1 ahead of fellow English player Mark Davis.