Neil Robertson is still far away from greatness
The dramatic rise of Australia’s Neil Robertson continued on Sunday night. Not only did the World Champion win the World Open. He now holds the world number one ranking.
Robertson was born 11 February 1982 in Melbourne. He began his snooker career at the age of 14 and became the youngest player to make a century at an Australian ranking event. At 17, he reached the third qualifying round of the World Championship.
The Current World Champion won the World under 21-championship in New Zealand and was given a wild card entry into the 2004 Masters. In the same year he moved up into the top 32 in the world rankings
Robertson has had his ups and downs through his career. While trying to make a living at Cambridge at snooker, the Australian had hardly enough money to afford food and rent. He had to borrow money from his mother and was contemplating returning home and
giving up the game. The man from Melbourne persevered with snooker and was rewarded for not giving in.
Since then, Robertson won his first ranking event in 2006. He beat Jamie cope in the final of the Grand Prix and claimed a cheque worth £60,000.On his way to the final he knocked out players like Ronnie O’Sullivan, Nigel Bond and Alan McManus.
The player won his second ranking event by clinching the Welsh Open against Andrew Higginson after disappointing displays in the UK Masters and the UK Champioship.
Robertson had a poor season in 2007, but in 2008 the Australian won the Bahrain Championship 9-7 against Matthew Stevens. In 2009, Robertson made the semi final of the World Championship, but lost to Shaun Murphy 17-14. He also won the Grand Prix in 2009
against Ding Junhui, which he would retain the following year under the new name the World Open against Ronnie O’Sullivan.
Robertson’s greatest achievement came in 2010
Robertson’s greatest achievement came in 2010. He defeated Fergal O’Brien, Martin Gould, Steve Davis and Ali Carter to reach his first World Championship final. He ran out easy winner by defeating Graeme Dott 18-13. This made him only the third player from
outside the UK to lift the trophy and the first Australian.
The win also earned Robertson his highest ranking, placing him at number two in the world and just behind John Higgins. He was given the provisional number one as he entered the World Open in the absence of Higgins and confirmed his status as world number
one with a victory over O’Sullivan to lift the World Open at Glasgow.
This was Robertson’s sixth ranking event and the player has grown into a champion. After his latest win the world number one said. “Being world champion has given me huge confidence, I go into finals knowing I can win under the most amount of pressure."
After working so hard Robertson now appears to be maturing into a great champion. He has improved dramatically over the past two to three seasons and will hope to add more titles to his game.
At the moment, Robertson seems to be playing the best snooker of his career and the player has taken great confidence out of his victory at the Crucible.
However, it is still too hard to say whether Robertson can go on and win more titles. During the days of Stephen Hendry, the other players were not as competitive. Robertson has only won his first World Championship a feat that the likes of Ronnie O’Sullivan
and John Higgins had already achieved by that age.
Robertson has taken time to grow into the great player he is, but he will need to win a number of World Championships before he can be remembered as a true great.
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