Williams Looking Forward to Green, Green Baize of Home
Mark Williams returns to the scene of his first ranking title triumph, holding two major titles and only one of the greatest come-backs in the history of the game, by John Higgins in the UK Championship final, preventing that being three.
It is fifteen years since Williams first won in front of his home crowd at the Newport Centre, beating Willie Thorne (5-1), Ken Doherty (5-3), Terry Murphy (5-2), Peter Ebdon (5-3), Dave Harold (6-1) and John Parrott (9-3) in the final.
With a highest break of just 73, some critics were not expecting the left-hander to go on and become one of the all-time greats and still be winning ranking titles two decades later.
He has won 18 ranking events in total, in 2002/03 he won the UK Championship, Masters and World Championship in the same season adding the LG Cup (GrandPrix) early in the next to complete the BBC Slam.
He has since been honoured by the queen for his services to snooker and become one of the most popular players with fans around the world.
Victory over Ding Junhui in Beijing last April and against Mark Selby in last week’s final in Berlin ensured that the top two slots are occupied by 35-year-olds after Higgins’ return to the top after his win in Telford.
Williams was understandably delighted to win in Germany but was confused by a number of messages text that he received suggesting he might have been a bit ‘emotional’ during the post-match interviews.
Williams is renowned for giving seven-times world champion, Stephen Hendry plenty of ‘stick’ by text message and the Scot was not about to miss his opportunity to get a little revenge.
Williams told Global-snooker.com that Stephen accused him of ‘blubbing’, which for the record he added, "I was definitely not”.
The funniest message came from fellow-countryman, Matthew Stevens in relation to Barry Hearn’s new ranking system. “Rather than congratulating me, Matthew warned me that in two years, I was going to have a shock when all these points come off!”
The Wyldecrest Parks Welsh Open breaks off next week and the world number two has mixed feelings about playing in front of his home-crowd.
He said, “Of course it is great to be able to commute from home and Jo can bring Connor and Kian to watch.
It is nice to have the extra support with lots of people wanting you to win, but that can also be a bit of a distraction.
I have won it couple of times, once in Newport and once in Cardiff, but cant remember a lot about those wins, they were so long ago, so it would be nice to get the hat-trick”.
