Young man's game mate

So Jimmy White and Stephen Hendry met in the first round of the 2010 UK championship, finishing yesterday. It was Jimmy's first time qualifying for the event in 4 years and the first time the pair met in a ranking event in 7 years. Hendry trotted out the old reliable before the match, saying of Jimmy, "He is probably the best player not to have won the world championship." Jimmy has beaten Hendry twice at the world championship though never when it counted, loosing the final to him 4 times in the early 90s.

Still, Jimmy was crowned world champion last month...yes you read that right, he won the first world seniors championship, beating Steve Davis in the final. Alex Higgins, RIP, was due to play the tournament. An over 40s event, it was the first World Seniors Championship for 19 years. Peter Ebdon, 40, was knocked out in the first round. Disappointingly, Hendry, 41, declined the invitation to play the tournament.

But back to the UK championship. Jimmy had a 8-7 lead in the first to 9 and incredibly the pair went on to have only their 5th ever final frame decider. Jimmy said afterwards, "I was 8-7 up, but there was so many mistakes you haven't got enough tape to go through it, and there was a bit of vintage Hendry at the end."

Looking back, it's been an interesting 12 experimental months for snooker. Last December there was the did it really happen six-red world championship in Killarney. The experiments continued, especially after Bary Hearn took control of World snooker this summer, and we saw Power snooker, not sure what that's about...

And in that time we have an Australian world champion. To cement his year, Neil Roberston beat Ronnie O'Sullivan to win the world open in September and become world number 1. Still, Graeme Dott was the player of the world championship this year, Dott needed to get to the final to stay in the top 16 and amazingly he made his 3rd final - if he had won he would have joined a select club to have won it more than once - but just ran our of steam in the end. It's a young man's game in fairness and to remind us of that, Jimmy white, now ranked 64 in the world at 48 years of age concluded, "I tried to get focused but I didn't play well at all and I'm really disappointed because I've done a lot of qualifying to get here. I was so pumped up for it but just couldn't produce the goods." Print this post