Wednesday, 23 December 2015

Player of the Month: March: Mark Williams

Day 3 of the Player of the Year countdown sees the nomination as March's Player of the Month... Mark Williams.

As a month of snooker, March was absolutely packed full of events. The first day of March saw the conclusion of the Gdynia Open with Neil Robertson running out the winner there once again. That was followed by the Sky Sports week of snooker with the World Seniors and Shoot-out from Blackpool. Next stop was India where Michael White won his first ever ranking event title, from Asia back to the UK and Llandudno was the destination for Judd Trump’s World Grand Prix victory, before another trip to Asia and Thailand this time and the Players Championship Finals.

Throughout that time one man was consistent without ever getting his hands on one of the major titles and that was Mark Williams. In a field full of oldies he did run out the World Seniors Champion (aged 39), and even during the Shoot-out he made the Last 16. At the Gdynia Open on March 1st he was the runner-up to Neil Robertson. India came along and he lost out in a narrow semi-final against eventual winner White. The difference between winning and losing in the quarter-finals of the World Grand Prix against Judd Trump was a decider which went to the colours. Finally, he looked like getting his title at the Players Championship when he led Joe Perry 3-0 in a best-of-7 final but Joe won all of the remaining frames to win the title.

The model of consistency that Mark displayed here was the kind that had been missing from his game for a few years and firmly reinstated him amongst the world’s top 16 from which he was outside of when this ran began.

His best runs really would have to be in the full ranking tournaments as they matter most, and a semi-final of the Indian Open saw him defeated 4-2 in the semis by White but prior to that he came through deciding frame wins against Peter Ebdon and Judd Trump before a comfortable win against Robert Milkins in the quarter-finals. In the Players Championship finals he started off by winning a potentially dangerous game against the other losing semi-finalist in India and that was Thepchaiya Un-Nooh. Next up was a 4-3 win against the then world champion Mark Selby. It was another decider in the quarter-finals as Mark took on the ever improving Matt Selt. Yet another meeting against Trump followed and he avenged the Grand Prix loss by beating him 4-2 to make the final in which he lost to Joe.

The performances are made even better by the amount of travelling he had to do in a short space of time to manage it. By going so late in the Gdynia Open he had to fly back first thing on Monday morning, in time to make his first round match in Blackpool at the Seniors that evening. After a few days in Blackpool ended that Friday he had to quickly go out once again to the Indian Open, the first of many long haul flights. Once he was knocked out in Saturday’s semi-finals he had to make the return leg back to Wales for the World Grand Prix for his first round match. When Judd knocked him out on the Friday night that was not the end of things for Willo in March as he had another long haul flight and a trip to Thailand for the Players Championship finals that started on the Tuesday. He made the final on Saturday which meant another short change as a flight to Beijing was ahead for the China Open which started on the Monday. You’d have thought that all of these long flights and snooker matches would have caught up with Mark eventually and perhaps that was the reason he didn’t get across the line in the latter stages of one of them. At the time I pointed to the work he had put in with his fitness coach Steve and the weight loss he achieved there was also great work for him and allowed him the strength and mental stamina.

There is no one performance you could point to that would sum up Mark’s March as there so many great wins but to beat an in form Judd Trump twice either side of a narrow quarter-final loss to the same player in a tournament he went on to win is impressive work, but what impressed me the most was the consistency that he was able to keep up having started by making the semi-finals of the Welsh Open losing that in a decider as well. Of course the pressure was on throughout the run, knowing he had to keep it going in order to get an automatic top 16 seeding through to the Crucible and avoid three rounds of qualifying. The run of results is always something I want to look for in a player of the month and it is rare to perform well throughout an entire month, wall to wall. Having found one here there was no way that Mark Williams could not be my Player of the Month for March.

Be sure to take some time out of your busy Christmas Eve schedule tomorrow to find out my player of the Month for April.

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