Neil Robertson Hopes Welsh Open Triumph Will Be Springboard To Mark Williams’ World Title

By Josh Thomas

Neil Robertson reckons his Welsh Open triumph will be ideal preparation as he looks to regain the world crown from Mark Williams.

The Australian got his hands on the Ray Reardon trophy after fending off Stuart Bingham’s fight-back in Cardiff, winning 9-7.

And already his thoughts are turning to Sheffield in April when he hopes to regain the World Championship title won so memorably last year by Wales ace Mark Williams.

“I’m a player who’s more than capable of being multiple World Championship. I just need to play with a lot of positivity and play matches on my terms,” said Robertson, who won his first global title in 2010.

“That was probably the first match I played in a long time where I felt it wasn’t on my terms. I need to learn from that straight away and not let it happen again.

“You look at the winners of the World Championships last six, seven years they’ve all won it playing their game whatever style that might be and I need to develop my style better to make it more threatening for the 17 days of the World Championship.

Having raced into a 7-3 lead, Bingham took the next four frames to level the scores before Robertson went on to win the next two.

It saw him take  home the £70,000 winning prize to win his second Welsh Open, his first since 2007 when he defeated Andrew Higginson in another close-fought encounter.

And he also gave a massive thumbs-up to the Motorsport Arena in Cardiff which has taken over the staging from Newport.

“It’s obviously a lot different to Newport,” added Robertson. “There wasn’t a deal of things to do in between matches, but here it’s one of my favourite tournaments because Cardiff is an amazing city.

“The venue is perfect for playing snooker and world snooker have absolutely nailed it like they have done with most of the home nation events.”

Barry Hearn announced that starting from the 2016/17 season there would be a Home Nations series and that the trophies would be named after well known snooker individuals.

Ray Reardon would be selected with the trophy named after him and Robertson hoped that one day he could meet up with the Welsh great.

“Yeah, definitely, it’ll be great to bump into Ray at one of the tournaments, maybe get a picture with him and the trophy that would be a dream for me.”

“I know he’s getting on a bit and it’s harder for him to travel to tournaments but to win my second one of these suppose as well, along with the Stephen Hendry trophy, they are such hard events to win, best of sevens up to the quarter finals.”

He added: “I’m just really proud to win multiple events again this season.

Having won in Latvia at the Riga Masters in July when he defeated Jack Lisowski 5-2 in the final, the Australian was happy after he claimed victory at the Motorpoint Arena.

“It’s an amazing achievement.” He said. “Two in the same season is always really nice as well.”

“It’s the first time I’ve won a ranking event in a second half of the season for a very long time, I can’t remember the last time I did that.” Robertson added.

“I’ve always started off seasons well or won UKs and things like that. The second half of the season, I’ve not really performed that well.”

“Maybe complacency, I don’t know, it’s nice to win one, still got a lot of the season to play well.”

“Moving forward it obviously is a huge confidence boost going into the World Championships it gets me in all the invitationals that are coming up.” He said. “A lot to look forward too.”