Is this the last time we'll see Stephen Lee at The Crucible? And what about Ronnie?

Table talk / Jamie "The Pacman" Pacheco / 22 April 2008 / 1 Comments

Jamie "The Pacman" Pacheco wonders whether we've seen the amiable Stephen Lee play his last pot at The Crucible and thinks about who else may be bowing out from snooker

Most of the decisions that sportsmen need to make in their sport are pretty easy ones: which side to place your penalty in football, what shot to play as a batsman in cricket, whether to lay up your shot or go to the flag in golf or even whether a transfer to another team is the right move in a team sport.

The reason these decisions are relatively easy to make is that if they go wrong, the sportsman in question will more often than not live to fight another day and have another chance to put things right next time. But I'm guessing the most important decision a sportsman ever has to make is when to pack it all up and call it a day, as this decision is often a non-reversible one.

There are a few notable exceptions of athletes who retired before returning with considerable success and Michael Jordan and Martina Hingis are two examples of this, though neither quite reached the dizzy heights of what they achieved first time round. The reasons why athletes retire in the first place are varied.

The aforementioned Hingis retired due to a persistent injury (the first time round) and because she didn't want to face drug charges (the second-time round), Glenn McGrath announced his retirement from international cricket due to a combination of wanting to spend more time with his family and not wanting to continue putting his body through the rigors of the game; Eric Cantona chose to bow out when he was at the top of his game and pursued such interests as Cinema, painting and beach football.

Only the athletes themselves know when it's right to pack it all in and the extra difficulty for those who play team sports is knowing they will be saying goodbye to the camaraderie that you take for granted having shared training pitches, dressing rooms and 6-hour coach rides for 10-15 years.

For those who play individual sports, endless hours alone in front of a darts board or on the snooker practice table don't hold this element that they miss when they're gone, but all sportsmen inevitably miss the thrill of the heat of the battle and the buzz of competing; if they didn't they wouldn't have competed at the highest level in the first place.

One snooker player who seems to have lost the desire to compete and appears to have lost his hunger for the game is Stephen Lee. Having crashed out of the World Championship in the first round for the second time in two years, this time to journeyman Joe Swail he said: ""I am sick and tired of packing my suitcase only to unpack it again soon after. It's dragging me down. This snooker game is very cruel at times. It affects you mentally and can get on top of you quite easily."

It's a shame that Stephen Lee has achieved so little (just 4 wins in ranking events) for a player whose cue action is incessantly praised by the BBC's commentators and who has one of the finest temperaments amongst the top players. Only Stephen Lee will know to what extent his well-documented weight problems have prevented him from achieving a lot more in the sport but he's a nice guy and a fine player and it would be a shame if he were to bow out from snooker in such an ignoble fashion.

One accusation you certainly couldn't level at Mark Williams is that he failed to fulfil his potential. Twice World Champion, a winner of sixteen ranking events and former world number one, he also made a maximum 147 break at The Crucible in 2005 for good measure. The last three or four years haven't gone the way Williams would have liked, he has admitted to having lost some of his passion for the game and has hinted at retirement, especially if he were to fall outside the Top 32 and needing to play qualifying rounds for the main events.

Luckily for him, he's through to the second round of the World Championship and a decent run in Sheffield should secure his place within the 32 top players in the world for next season. The bad news is he's likely to meet Ronnie O'Sullivan in the next round but he's still available at [65.0] if you think he can go all the way for a third time.

Another stalwart of the game who overcame the first hurdle at snooker's blue riband event was Stephen Hendry. No one has won more World Titles or been ranked number one for more consecutive seasons than this man, yet he needed the deciding frame to overcome Mark Allen in this year's edition of the World Championships.

Having won more than £8 million in prize money over the course of his career (plus endorsements) and with a cabinet full of trophies, I wonder how he still finds the motivation to keep going and grind out results against players he would have wiped the floor with during his prime. Now 39, I can't imagine he's got more than two years left in him at this level but for the time being his name is still in the draw and he will play the winner of the Fu/Ding match in round two. He's currently [26.0] on Betfair to win in Sheffield for the first time in nine years and as the Americans say: "On any given Sunday..."

From the world's most successful snooker player to the world's most talented and it's anyone's guess as to what Ronnie O'Sullivan's future plans are. This has been a turbulent and erratic season even by his standards. Having won the UK Championship after making a 147 in the deciding frame against Mark Selby in the semis and playing a virtually flawless match against the in-form Maguire in the final, he then threw away an 8-5 lead against Selby in the final of the Welsh Open and followed up the defeat with some rather derogatory remarks about the "Jester from Leicester's" style of play.

A month or so later he was caught on camera making sexual remarks about a female Chinese reporter during a press conference in the wake of a defeat to Marco Fu in the first round of the China Open. Ronnie is another who seems to have lost his passion for snooker and has admitted he gets more excited by joining up with the local running clubs at the places he plays snooker at than actually playing the matches, though with Ronnie you never know if he really means it.

If he calls it a day to pursue other interests and this is the last time he ever plays at The Crucible, then it would be fitting if he were to bow out with a win. The best price on the exchange is [3.8] that he will do just that and personally, I wouldn't be laying it.

Comments (1)

1. Mrs Tennant | 09 October 2008

   I am sorry to hear that Sephen Lee is considering giving up on 'snooker'. He is a fine player, a pleasure to watch and always behaves like a gentlemen. I do hope he will take a short break and come back refreshed and give us many years of that 'superb cue action'.
   Please send him our best wishes for the future.