It's not often that a Q Tour snooker event makes headlines, but given the protagonist and what he achieved, the satellite tour event in Sweden proved an exception.
Star of show in front of only a handful of spectators was former world number six Zhao Xintong, once destined for greatness but now looking for a way back to the upper echelons of the sport having returned last month from a 20-month ban following a match-fixing probe.
The Chinese player’s talents were evident as he recorded a maximum 147 break in the 4-1 win over Hong Kong's 14-year-old Shaun Liu.
"Obviously it gets us a bit of extra attention and it's special for the Q Tour as well because it's actually the first 147 in the history of the tour," Swedish Billiards Federation president Andy Nettleton, who witnessed the break, said.
As well as Zhao, the small snooker hall featured the country’s 13th ranked player – Brian O’Grady, who originally hails from Thurles.
"If you're a climber, you want to have a tough mountain - otherwise, what's the point?," O’Grady told Reuters having won his first qualifier but lost out on the last 64 after defeat to Mark Vincent, who had breaks of 73, 59 and 50 in his 3-0 win.
"Getting beaten by somebody really, really much better than you is actually nearly an education in itself because you see the centimetre precision, the perfection of how they move the white ball around. It's quite inspiring - scary and inspiring," O’Grady added.
Speaking to irishinsweden.com, O’Grady said that with his children now grown up, he has rediscovered his love of the game.
"I’m from Thurles, and there’s a golf club there with a snooker table – I’ve been hunted off that table by adults since I was seven or eight years old. I fell in love with it as a child, when I could barely peek over the top of the table, and it just fascinated me.
"And I tell you, every time I walk into a place where there’s a table in front of me that I can play on, I look over my shoulder to see is there any adults about to chase me off – at 54 years old, it’s in my bone marrow.
"I cannot get rid of that, and the thrill of suddenly realising I can get to play now for the next hour or two, I actually have never shaken that feeling."
O’Grady’s Q Tour season is now over for the season, but now playing under the Swedish banner, he still has big ambitions for 2024.
"My goal is to get into the top 10 and maybe the top eight, because then I’m eligible to represent Sweden – I’m a Swedish citizen, so I would then possibly represent Sweden, not only in the Nordic championships, where we challenge the Icelandic, Finnish, Norwegian and Danish, but also I would then be in the top five players who can go through to the European Championships."
Additional reporting: Reuters/Philip O'Connor
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