The Snooker World Championship is into its final week, with just four players left in the competition. In an attempt to give this most sedate of sports a gladiatorial edge, each player enters the area to his own choice of music. It’s probably written into their contracts that every player must have a nickname. First came ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, then the ‘Whirlwind’, Jimmy White. Now we have ‘Rocket’ Ronnie O’Sullivan, ‘The Jester from Leicester’ and ‘The Wizard of Wishaw’. Ali Carter is ‘The Captain’, because he holds a pilot’s licence; Anthony Hamilton is ‘The Robin Hood of snooker’ (AKA 'The Sheriff of Pottingham')… merely because he hails from Nottingham.
The anomaly is Stuart Bingham, who is playing in one of the semi-finals. His nickname - ‘Ball-run’ Bingham - doesn’t liken him to a force of nature, like a hurricane or whirlwind. The unflattering sobriquet is the only one in the snooker canon which suggests that a player’s success comes not from skill, but just from being lucky! I hope the balls run for him this afternoon.
A driver, this morning, learning how to cope with rush-hour traffic...
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