With May being a short month for snooker, there really is
only one contender for both Player and Moment of the Month and that is Stuart Bingham and his amazing
World Championship win. A win that I think we can all rightly say came out of
absolutely nowhere in a sense.
Coming into the 2015 World Championship Stuart was in
reasonable form but certainly nothing world beating by any means. In terms of
his World Championship record he had never made it to the one table set-up
before and had lost in the first round in 2014 to Ken Doherty quite
convincingly.
By the time May had actually come around he had started by
recovering an early deficit against Robbie Williams in round one to win that
match 10-7, before thrashing former World Champion Graeme Dott in the Last 16
but again he hadn’t really done much special in those matches to get through
and was certainly going to have to up his game in the quarter-finals when he
took on Ronnie O’Sullivan 5 times World Champion and arguably the greatest of
them all.
Even when he’s not at his best O’Sullivan still takes a lot
of beating and that was certainly going to be the case here. Ballrun Bingham as
he’s known was more than up to the challenge of avenging the bashing he took in
the same round to the same opposition two years ago when ironically, O’Sullivan
went on to win the title. The defeat that Bingham inflicted upon Ronnie meant
that this would be the first time since 2011 that Ronnie had not been in the
World Championship final. Something that was definitely worthy of tears when
Stuart stepped into to chat to the BBC after the match. In terms of the crying,
that would be the first of many times we would see that from Bingham in the
coming days.
Beating O’Sullivan 13-9 to reach the one table set-up for
the first time ever was just the beginning of things, as he took on one of the
pre-tournament favourites and my tournament tip Judd Trump in the semi-finals
with only one final appearance between them (Judd’s in 2011) it was bound to be
a tense affair.
Having never been to a Crucible semi-final before Stuart
would also not be used to a four session match so stamina and mental resilience
would have to be something he would quickly need to get used to. At the end of
the first session of 8 frames he was 5-3 ahead which was important for Stuart
as he now had something to build from when he came back on Friday afternoon for
the second session. That second session was squared after Judd won the last
frame of the session to essentially stay in it but still 9-7 behind. Again,
Bingham would be very happy to have held on to his lead overall even though he
was unable to build upon it. In the third session Judd was able to level at 9-9
after the first two frames, but undeterred Stuart hit back with a massive four
frames in a row to lead 13-9, but Judd stopped the rot to end the session just
13-11 behind and just about hanging on in there squaring another important
session
Now for Bingham it was a case of holding it together, just
needing four of nine possible frames on Saturday evening to put himself in his
first World Championship final, but that is a lot harder than it sounds.
Immediately he restored the three frame advantage at 14-11 but Judd quickly hit
back with two frames on the trot to only trail by one at 14-13. Importantly,
Stuart hit back with a century to make sure he held on to that familiar two
frame advantage going into the interval ahead of a possible five frames that
remained. 76 from Judd closed to one again at 15-14, but a second century of
the evening gave Bingham the important step of getting to with one frame of the
final leading 16-14. He didn’t really have a chance though in the next two as
consecutive centuries from Trump sent a close match the distance and to a
deciding frame. Trump was unlucky when his chance came along but Bingham
dominated overall to put himself in the final against Shaun Murphy. More tears
followed in his interview after the match, and he joked telling himself to
“grow up”. He’d won plenty of fans from the general public with his likeable
personality that came across in these interviews and was just one match from
achieving a lifelong dream for any snooker player.
Playing Shaun Murphy was a very tough prospect, Shaun had
previously been to two world finals winning one of them and was on fire. Top
players like Barry Hawkins and Joe Perry had been totally battered. You would
have thought he had plenty left in the tank after some easy matches, while in
the semi’s Stuart had really been made to graft.
Despite going 3-0 down and 4-2 behind Ballrun still managed
to get out of the first session even at 4-4. The evening session looked like
being the key point in this final as Shaun Murphy went 8-4 in front after the
first four frames, but as it turned out it became the key session for another
reason, Bingham pegged him back to 6-8 and won the last two frames of the
session to end the day just one behind at 8-9, which when Murphy was flying at
8-4, looked like being a lot worse.
He certainly would have felt the better of the two players
despite being behind and that showed when they came out on Monday afternoon.
Bingham won the first four frames of the session, just as Murphy had done on
Sunday evening, turning an 8-9 deficit into a 12-9 lead and when Shaun could
only share the last four of the session after the mid-session it was 14-11 at
the end of the third session and Stuart would come back in the evening only
four frames from the World Title. The first two frames were shared to make it
15-12 but then Shaun hit back strong the way all his fans hoped he would. It
was 15-15. We all knew the next frame was key, if Shaun went in front you
fancied that he’d storm to victory having battered down Bingham’s defences. The
frame lasted an hour, after a long battle on the yellow which Murphy missed
when it looked like he would clear to lead and several foul points almost
handed the frame to Stuart and he had stopped the rot. An important 55
consolidated that lead at 17-15 and put him one away from the Championships.
Just as you wondered whether Stuart could get over the line a wayward long pot
attempt from Shaun left him a golden chance on a plate to go and win the match.
88 points later it was all over and Stuart had won the match 18-15.
You could see in the interviews at the end that Stuart was
struggling to come to terms with what he had achieved and as always Shaun was a
gentleman in complimenting Stuart for his well-deserved win.
He was tearful but also terrific and had certainly done it
the hard way to win the title having to beat three previous champions along the
way and many of the tournament favourites, which makes Stuart Bingham an
obvious choice for May’s player and moment of the month.
We'll be back to normality tomorrow with July's Moment and Player of the moment being back to their separate ways.
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