World Snooker Championship: Joe O’Connor loses his bearings as he goes wrong way at start of debut Crucible appearance
Published 21/04/2024 at 16:54 GMT
Joe O’Connor was the Crucible's only debutant for the 2024 World Snooker Championship. The Leicester native has the look of a man who is a pretty cool customer, but the storied Sheffield venue can do strange things to even the most hardened campaigners and O'Connor had a wobbly moment just before his clash with Mark Selby in the opening round on Sunday afternoon.
The Crucible can be a daunting place for even the most hardened campaigners, so it was no surprise when debutant Joe O’Connor had a wobbly moment.
There were few shaky moments for O’Connor on the table, as he raced into a 7-2 lead over fellow Leicester native and four-time Crucible champion Mark Selby.
O’Connor’s wobbly moment came before the start of play, as he took a wrong turn when being introduced to the crowd.
You could imagine the thoughts going through O’Connor’s mind as he waited to be introduced by MC Rob Walker.
“Joe, don’t fall down the stairs. Joe, don’t drop your cue. Joe, do you have your cue? Yes. Okay, good, here we go…. oh!”
To be fair to Walker, he gave O’Connor every chance to make the correct entrance as he said: “And now to a player who is about to walk down these famous, famous stairs…”
Stairs? What stairs, thought O’Connor as he strode purposefully towards a dead end. Checking his stride, and styling things out, O’Connor turned 90 degrees to his right and headed down the stairs.
There was no stumble on his way down and there was no stumble on the table as he took charge of his match with Selby.
Breaks of 122, 67, 101, 74 and 61 saw O'Connor win the final five frames to lead 7-2.
O'Connor and Selby will return to play to a finish on Monday afternoon.
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