World Championship 2013

yer I think it can....has anyone else this championship had the applause and fans as firmly behind them as he has?

it must be more than that though musnt it ? the crowd used to love ray reardon, but you wouldn't say he was one of the most naturally gifted players would you ?

The standard of this years World Championship has been pretty poor though compared to previous years.

For me, I guess naturally gifted means a mixture of things, such as making the game look easy, pulling off shots that very few others can do / or will try to do, playing with a certain amount of flair, and just looking very at ease around the table. Indeed, there is an aesthetic factor that makes a natural player more entertaining to watch, and it happens in most sports.

E.g. - in tennis, the likes of a McEnroe or Federer, in golf someone like Seve, and in snooker, Alex Higgins, Jimmy White and Ronnie.

A lot of naturally gifted sportsmen aren't necessarily consistent winners, perhaps Federer being the exception, but there is almost something 'magical' about them that endear them to the crowd. Hendry has all the titles, but O'Sullivan has produced sessions of play that truely are breath-taking.

I suppose the natural talent of Ronnie means his standards have never dipped, unlike Henry who nosedive about 32, Ronnie at 37 is as good if not better than Ronnie at 20,slightly slower perhaps, but more clinical.

With Ronnie it's just the ease and effortlessness he plays with, knocking in a 147 in 5 mins, incredible with his left hand, phenomenal cue ball control. He can play so quick because his speed of thought is so fast and sees everything unfolding in his brain. You don't get extra points for any of that but he can just do things nobody else can or could, hard to explain.

I think it comes down to preference between him and Hendry, ROS has more of that genius element but Hendry had plenty to his game that I'm sure Ronnie would love to have. The fact they both say each other is the greatest and have a lot of mutual respect says a lot.

No matter what site you go on, whenever Ronnie wins a major tournament, the Hendry-O' Sullivan debate pops up again, usually due to the knee-jerk reactions of the bbc commentators. Weren't they calling John higgins the GOAT a couple of years ago.

This site thankfully is much better on that front than others.

I'm beginning to despise the word GOAT.

There will always be debate in any sport about who is the greatest, because it is so subjective and can never be measured. Laver / Federer in tennis, Nicklaus/ Woods in golf, Ronnie/Hendry in snooker etc. Probably the one 'sport' that can be agreed on is Phil Taylor in darts.

Ronnie says he won't play in China unless they pay him to go over there, I believe Ronnie will play in the UK Championships in December & the Masters In January.

Alright chaps

Just thought I'd let you know, I've just made a small discussion area for us Snooker fans to keep it active and alive as much as possible and to hopefully to attract some more members during the bigger tournaments and to the Snooker board as well as it becomes more popular.

http://www.ja606.co.uk/articles/viewArticle/207195

Be lovely to see most of you come along and help out the cause.