Flawless player, safety skills
The treatise about the fundamental snooker skills and dominating players, who have acquired and maintained those skills, continues.
In the previous parts we have discussed the ‘potting’ and ‘break-building’ skills, in this part the ‘safety’ skill and players, who are best at it, are under discussion.
Safety – For the aggressive and attacking snooker players, safety might not be an inevitable skill, as they believe in winning the game with an attacking approach.
However, safety play, which solely relies on a player’s capability to play tactically and strategically, is very important for a player to be at the top of his game.
Safety play can help a player win even when he is not playing the best game. For instance Ronnie is famous for his attacking attitude around the table, but now he has also improved his safety skills, because without the knowledge and practice of safe-play
a player cannot claim to be perfect as it is undoubtedly a significant department of competitive snooker.
Doubtlessly, the greatest safety player that the game has ever seen is the legendary Steve Davis, as it was also suggested by a BBC panel and BBC audience polls back in 2000.
The 53-year-old legendary Steve is one of the all-time snooker greats and is believed to be a tactical genius. Six-time world champion, Steve does not play professional snooker regularly in the midst of his declining game and focus, and however, the tactical
side of his game is still on a high.
Steve’s golden days on the green table are over as he is now a member of the world snooker’s governing body and looks over other aspects of the game.
According to many snooker experts and critics, John Higgins now is the top player when it comes to the tactical and safety side of the game, and it is just not an assumption as the current facts and figures support this hypothesis.
The three-time world champion has compiled over 400 competitive centuries including five maximum breaks and is ranked third in the list of players with most centuries. Higgins being a player with the strongest tactical skills is a view, which was reinforced
when he went on to win his third world crown, in 2009.
He compiled 11 centuries in his journey to the crown, and he completely out-shined his opponent Shaun Murphy in the final, as he raised the titles with a convincing score-line of 18-9.
Shaun in a post match conference admitted that he has never seen such a composed and technically accurate player, he said that John’s tactical and safety play is the best he has ever come across.
Following John Higgins in list of the players with strong tactical and safety play is ‘the rocket’ Ronnie O’Sullivan. However, he was not recognized as a player, who would give much importance to the strategic side of the game early in his career, but he
has somehow got the hang of this department now, and has improvised his tactical and safety play significantly.
Mark Selby has displayed some great tactical and safety play over the years, however he might not be as good as Steve Davis or John Higgins, but he has the potential to emulate these big players in the coming future.
Like Higgins, Mark can play strong safety shots and build up breaks with the help of zealous potting and a variety shot selection techniques. However, it will take some time for him to become completely flawless.
Peter Ebdon deserves a mention here as he appears to be big in safety battles, and Shaun Murphy also has the potential to become the top-seed in the coming future and has noteworthy safety skills.
‘The thunder from down under’ Neil Robertson, regardless of his attacking nature and style of play is now improving on his safety department. The safety and tactical side of the game is as important as potting or break building, and cannot be taken for granted.
There are, however, many players with strong tactical skills well below the world ranking, but again they need to work on other departments of the game in-order to rise to the surface, as it is important for a snooker player to have a blend of all the skills
up his sleeves to become the world’s leading cueist.
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