It’s no secret to us snooker fans the horrible things that Ali Carter has had to go through in recent years, and the torrid times continued for Carter during the middle of the year. After beating Testicular cancer in the second half of 2013, whilst also suffering from Chrones Disease for some time now, which has made travelling to events in China very difficult because of the dietary changes that you have to make when you have the disease, Ali received the horrible news again after the World Championships in May that he now had Lung cancer. After undergoing chemotherapy and other treatments to fight cancer off for a second time, Ali was able to make his return to the practise table in the Autumn as he built up the strength to return to competition once again. Carter’s return was at first planned for the Bulgarian Open in early October, but after pulling out of that one he made his comeback after a last minute invitation into the Hong Kong Exhibition Cup taking place from the 13th-18th of October. The event isn’t officially licensed by the WPBSA but it is certainly still a tournament that is well respected by World Snooker and the players that enter it, and by us fans as well.
The format of the event sees is that the 8 players entered
are split into two groups of four where each player in the group plays each of
the other three players once, before the top 2 in each group move into the
semi-finals. That gave Ali the opportunity to play three matches over the
best-of-7 frames to make his comeback and see how things go, which was
especially nice to do in a small invitation with no threat to his ranking
(which has actually been frozen at 13 until the end of the season).
His campaign started off against home man Marco Fu in a
match Ali won convincingly 4-1 to make a dream start to the event in a
performance that included three breaks of 55. Next up for the Captain was Shaun
Murphy who won his opening game and was at the top of his game after taking the
title a week or so before in Bulgaria. On that occasion Murphy was the victor
4-1 with a top break of 92, while Carter did manage a break of 63 in the frame
he was able to win. That left Carter with a winner takes all match in the final
round robin game against Liang Wenbo. Liang was off to the perfect start taking
an early 2-0 advantage thanks to big contributions of 90 and 107. Ali hit back
though winning all of the next four frames including runs of 70 and 105 himself
to beat Wenbo 4-2, and take 2nd place in Group B with two wins and a
loss.
That meant that Ali played Mark Davis in the semi-finals
over the best-of-11 frames and I’m sure that I wasn’t the only one who was
desperate to see Carter win and make the final. Mark is a very tough opponent,
and has a good record out in Asia, but on this occasion Ali was able to beat
him quite comfortably 6-2 with a high break of 139 to put himself into the
final where he would play his good friend Shaun Murphy once again after Shaun
beat Joe Perry 6-5 in the other semi-final. The final was played over the
best-of-13 frames which was split into mini sessions of six and seven frames.
The first six frames of the final were shared as they ended the first mini
session at 3-3 with breaks of 68 and 112 for Ali who had led both 2-0 and 3-1.
Having won the final two frames of the first session, Shaun then won the first
two of the next to move 5-3 in front, but Carter hit back in style to level the
match at 5-5 thanks to breaks of 69 and 99. A contribution 54 put Shaun Murphy
one ahead with two to play at 6-5, but Ali forced the decider with a very
timely break of 101, and when his chance came in the decider he took to produce
the “perfect result” as he took the Hong Kong Exhibition Cup title beating
Shaun Murphy 7-6 in a win that the twice World Championship runner-up classed
as one of the biggest of his career so far on his comeback to the game having
beaten cancer again in what he tweeted was the biggest match of his life before
undergoing his first treatment.
In fact, Carter’s tweets have been inspirational to all
snooker fans, myself included because it really does help to put everything
that goes on in life into perspective as Ali said that it has for him. He has
now realised that snooker isn’t the most important thing in his life, and that
nothing that goes on in snooker anymore can affect him and he has nothing to
fear from the game anymore having been through what he has. That’s why I’m sure
that Carter can win more professional titles before his career is over, because
he has nothing else to prove now having won the biggest battle of his career
and that is perhaps why he was able to win again so soon after his return. Ali
Carter’s tweets and comments are the reminder to us that snooker is just a game
and the small problems we have in life are nothing compared to what others have
to go through, as well as the fact that we should think before moaning to
others about our own pointless issues because you never know what other people
have going on.
That quite simply is why Ali Carter’s victory on return to
action in Hong Kong is my moment of the month for October because of the other
battles he’s won just to get back playing the game.
That moment is one of the main contenders for my snookering moment of the year in 2014, but there are still two more to reveal from November and December so be sure to stick around for those before I reveal the final rankings.
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