Kyren Wilson intends to take on board the advice given to him by Ronnie O’Sullivan after an early exit from the World Snooker Championship this year, thanking the Rocket for his words of wisdom.
Wilson arrived at the Crucible this year as the defending champion, with four titles to his name this season and many people’s tip to lift the trophy again.
By the end of the first day of the tournament, the Warrior’s battle was over, beaten by debutant Lei Peifan in the opening round in a brilliant contest won 10-9 by the Chinese youngster.
It was a bitter pill to swallow as Wilson arrived in Sheffield full of confidence, but he took his medicine without much complaint, praising Lei’s inspired performance.
‘It was definitely a unique feeling because that’s probably the most confident I’ve ever gone into a World Championship. I really, really fancied winning it,’ Wilson told Metro.
‘My practise form going into the World Championships was right on point. It was right where I wanted it to be. I knew that there was room for improvement, but it was in a nice position where I knew that I could get through and sort of tick over and improve as the tournament went on.
‘But obviously, first round of the Crucible is always a potential banana skin. And obviously there was a lot more on me this time.
‘I didn’t enjoy being on the first day, I must admit. I didn’t like it at all because obviously we’re so busy with the lead up to the World Championships, with the media day and all that sort of thing. You want to go back, you want to chill out, you want to then come back in a couple of days and get going. You don’t want to get going the day after, it’s a bit strange.
‘But yeah, thoroughly enjoyed it still, the whole build up to it and the attention I received. But obviously not the result.
‘He played some really inspired snooker and just hit the ground running in the evening session. I don’t really feel like I did too much wrong. Lei held himself together really, really well in the decider. So yeah, no complaints really.’
O’Sullivan had suggested after Wilson’s exit that he had played too much snooker over the season and was coming in over-played.
The seven-time champion made the point on punditry duty, but also chatted through his thoughts with Wilson on the phone, which the Warrior greatly appreciated and intends to take on board.
‘I chatted at length with Ronnie about it actually. We had a phone call during the World Championships after I’d been beaten, which was really nice of him to give me a bit of support afterwards,’ he said.
‘I’d done an exhibition in Macau over New Year’s. I got back, I went straight into the Championship League, won that group, got straight into the Masters final and then went straight to Germany, won that, then went straight into the Championship League again and I lost in the final of that.
‘We spoke at that time actually and just had a little chat about it. And in hindsight, maybe I should have just skipped the Championship League, although I wanted to keep winning because I know I’m playing well and I think I can win.
‘You’ve just got to rest your mind at certain times and maybe that was the time.’
Not that there was any lack of motivation going into Sheffield, but O’Sullivan’s advice was that you can only really operate at the peak of your powers so much and you need to save the hunger to do so for when it matters.
‘I think definitely I’ll take a leaf out of his book,’ said Wilson. ‘I think you want to stay hungry. You want to keep enjoying it. And I think if you slog it out and you go tournament, tournament, tournament, tournament, it almost becomes too repetitive to the point where you stop enjoying it.
‘Whereas if you give yourself a little break, you’re like, oh, you know, I miss it, I really want to get back to it. And I think that’s something he’s been very clever with over the years. That’s something I need to look at doing for the future of my career to kind of get the best out of me at the right times.’
There has not been much rest in terms of travelling for Wilson since the World Championship, mixing holidays and exhibitions, including playing in front of over 4,000 people in China.
‘There’s a big Billiards Expo on in Guangzhou and I think they were anticipating about a million people being there, so it was mental,’ he said. ‘It was like something I’ve never seen before. The passion for the game, for the players.
‘I then went on to do an exhibition with a couple of other top players and we were playing in front of 4,500 fans. It was incredible. It’s certainly a special place to go and play snooker. It’s a great time to be a snooker player.
‘I’ve been Dubai and then onwards to China. I only got back Monday then I’m off to Helsinki tomorrow and then I’ll go Portugal when I get back and then straight to China again.’
While snooker players are well used to trips to China, they could become all the more common since Zhao Xintong became the country’s first world champion earlier this month.
10 of the 32 players at the Crucible this year were from China and if the number of top performers in the game becomes predominantly Chinese, there will be more and more argument to move more of the tour there.
