THE standard of play was at times laughable, errors were committed that would have irked beginners, but that did not concern Jimmy White in the slightest after his scrambling, nervy and dramatic 6-5 win over Mark Williams in the quarter-finals of the Rileys Club Masters yesterday. As White said: “If you have to win ugly, win ugly.”
In the previous round White was, with the exception of a vintage late burst, light years from his best in beating Matthew Stevens 6-5. He was even worse against Williams but the old warhorse, cruelly denied in so many classics over the years after producing outstanding performances, somehow stumbled over the line.
A wholesale improvement in every department of White’s game will be required tonight when, in his eleventh appearance in the semi-finals of the Masters, he plays Ronnie O’Sullivan. In contrast to White, O’Sullivan impressed en route to beating Ding Junhui, the 17-year-old Chinese prodigy, 6-2 before a less animated crowd at Wembley Conference Centre last night.
While White was afflicted by a tense cue arm in the latter stages, O’Sullivan grew more confident. Without a hint of stage fright, Ding led 2-1 but was outscored 444-43 as O’Sullivan, attempting to win his third event of the season, swept through the next five frames in an hour, assisted by breaks of 77, 92, 123 and 67.
White, 5-2 down against Stevens before discovering his touch in the nick of time, built a 3-0 lead at which point Williams complained that the cushions were guilty of wildly inconsistent bounce. In an unprecedented move, the mid-session interval was taken a frame early in order for remedial work to be carried out and upon returning 25 minutes later, White’s concentration was absent without leave.
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Unconvincingly, Williams rallied to 4-4 before stealing the ninth frame on the black after White, by now under mounting pressure and showing it, had missed a straightforward green to wrap it up. His number looked up but Williams could not close the gate.
From a fluked snooker, White was presented with the opportunity to clear yellow to pink for 5-5 and added an unusually low-scoring decider 47-16 with a highest break of 14.
His legion of supporters, undoubtedly an intimidating negative for his opponents at Wembley, roared their approval. White, carrying his 6-year-old son Tommy Tiger, basked in their cheers.
“I couldn’t keep my concentration but I kept saying to myself, HP, HP, have patience,” White, who this week is being sponsored by a well known sauce manufacturer, said. HP, ie, higher percentage, of pots, that is, will be a prerequisite for success against O’Sullivan.
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