Snooker news - Robertson on 'dangerous' video game addiction, Trump rivalry and when he nearly quit

The world No 2 told Andy Goldstein on Eurosport’s new vodcast The Break that he used video games as an “escape” while his wife Mille was battling depression and anxiety.

In a wide-ranging discussion, he also spoke about how he was at a job centre ready to quit snooker after failing on the tour three times, before going on to win the World Championship in 2010 after trailing Martin Gould 11-5 and then becoming one of the best players of the modern era.

With the World Championship postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, Eurosport has , including a new vodcast, which airs every day at 2pm on Eurosport 1. Snooker fans will also be able to enjoy all nine episodes in full in audio form on a new podcast, The Break.

We have selected some of the best extracts from Robertson’s chat with Goldstein below - including the Australian’s thoughts on his best match, his rivalry with Judd Trump, his long-term goals and his childhood pursuit of becoming a snooker player - but tune into Eurosport 1 every day for the snooker vodcast.

I came over to England at 16 and I'd never experienced anything like it before. I came over by myself and my grandmother lived in England, so she picked me up at the airport and drove me down to Plymouth, where we played the qualifiers, and me and the three other Australian players lived in these sort of student apartments, it was really weird!

All the overseas players used to stay in there, players from Egypt, South Africa, Thailand, everywhere; it had a lot different feel to the tournaments now, which is mainly UK based players or China based players apart from one or two others. It was a great time, a really interesting experience, I didn’t do very well, I only won one match, I got absolutely hammered most of the time. I clearly wasn’t good enough to compete against the opposition at the time, but I sort of used that as motivation in years to come.

From 16 to 21, I fell off the tour three times. By the time I was 21, I had pretty much given up; realistically how many times can you fly over from Australia to base yourself in the UK?

So I was in the job centre in Melbourne, I didn’t really have a choice, I was in this queue and there were a lot of people arguing because they weren’t going to get their dole check. Back home, you have to apply for at least 12 jobs before you can get your cheque, so there were people there that hadn’t applied for enough, so it all started kicking off. So I thought, is this going to be me for the rest of my life? So I just turned around and left, had a chat with my mum and dad, the World Under-21’s was coming up in about a month and it was in New Zealand, which is only a short flight away from Melbourne, and so I practiced for that, went to the tournament, that was in 2003, and still to this day, it was the strongest field ever at a World U21’s.

It was myself, Ding Junhui, Mark Allen, one of the Poomjaeng brothers, many great players there. I beat Ding in the semi-finals, then beat Liu Song in the final. So when I won that, I actually got an overseas wildcard pick, one of five overseas players to qualify for the tour. I got one and I remember Ding got one. So I’d qualified for the tour.

It went to 11-5 [the second-round match with Gould], and I was staying in my house with a few friends and Matthew Selt, who used to visit every now and again, and the person who rented the apartment asked if I wanted to extend for another week, and I said 'no don’t bother, I'm probably going to get beaten', so we didn’t extend. Then something very interesting happened, we were watching John Higgins vs Steve Davis and the winner of me vs Gould would go on the play them, and Davis was playing really well, I think he thought it was his last chance to get to a one-table situation, and that gave me a glimmer of hope, I thought if Steve Davis could beat John Higgins, I am 11-5 down to Martin Gould, with the prospect of playing Steve Davis in the next round.

We watched Steve Davis win and I thought if I could put Martin under some pressure in the first few frames of the night session, he might start to get nervous. So at 11-5, I came out like I was 11-5 up, positive body language, positive snooker. I won the first couple of frames and I start to notice the balls weren’t going in for Martin that were in the previous session, I turned the match around and eventually won 13-12. From that point on, I decided that if I can get through that, I can get through anything in the tournament. So I won the tournament….!

The problems [his wife Mille was battling anxiety and depression for several years] sort of relate to each other. I had to spend a lot of time at home, so that was my escape from dealing with things, it’s not easy to watch someone struggle so much, so that was my way of getting away from things.

Some of the games are harmless, but it got to the point when I was playing way too much, like FIFA, because I am so competitive, I was getting my competitiveness out of FIFA. I would drop my son off at school and came back to play FIFA instead of going to the club. When I had days off, I could play it 12 hours straight, easily. I can’t play any ultra-competitive games full stop any more, because I just get too drawn in to them. I can play some games that aren’t like that, but it’s the competitive ones are really dangerous for me.

The Champions of Champions final this year is definitely the best match I have ever been a part of. Judd would probably say the same if he was on the right side of it, he still probably looks back on it as a great match. We went toe-to-toe all the way through the final, probably the most amazing thing was, up to 8-8, already an incredible standard, he pinched a frame off of me to go 9-8 up, he got a break of 50 odd in the next frame, and now I need a snooker with five reds on the table, and I’ve potted the five reds, five blacks, got the snooker and I won because of a re-spot, so then we are nine each. In the decider, he’s gone for a long red, missed it and I’ve got a 137 to finish it off, just an amazing end to a great final. A match that I will always look back on for the rest of my career with an immense amount of pride.

I’m very happy with how I have been going, I was really looking forward to the Player Champs and the World Champs this year. I thought this year it was going to take something really special to beat me at the Worlds, the way I have been playing the latter half of this season, obviously [there are] a lot of great players involved, but I thought this year was going to be a really good year for me.

Judd and I were in opposite halves, which created quite a good story, the two of us getting to the final. We will have to wait and see, hopefully we will be able to play the Worlds, but playing it in July is like everyone starting fresh, so it will be very interesting to see what happens.

When you look at the Masters, Champion of Champions, they aren’t actually ranking events, but they are more prestigious than 90 per cent of the ranking events on the Tour. When I won the Worlds, that was my sixth ranking event win, and my target then was to get to 10, and when I got to 10, a friend of mine said that I had to push for 20 now, because I think that’s what Mark Williams was on at the time, so I am going for 20, hopefully I can get there.

Obviously this is the 10th anniversary of when I managed to win the Worlds, I haven’t got to a final since, lost to Higgins and Ronnie a couple of times on the way to the final, many experts think that a couple of the quarter-finals I’ve lost were the final itself. Plenty of time left, we will see!