Robertson claims World Championship
Monday, 3 May 2010Neil Robertson became the first Australian to win the snooker World Championships in the early hours of Tuesday morning after defeating Graeme Dott 18-13 at the Crucible, Sheffield.
During a drawn out final session, Robertson kept opening up a two-frame lead, only for the gritty Dott to reduce the gap to just one and both players struggled to make breaks of any decent size and they went into the interval at 14-12.
Two 55s from Robertson helped him maintain the two-frame advantage.
The struggle continued after the break but Robertson eventually took a mammoth 27th frame to go 15-12 in front, and his roars would have been heard Down Under such was his relief. But Dott was going no where and a bad miss in the next frame by Robertson let him him in to reduce the gap to two again.
But Dott could only win one more frame as the Aussie wrapped up victory at 18-13 an 12.54am. The latest finish to a Crucible final up until now came in 2006 when Dott completed victory over Peter Ebdon at 12.52am.
The situation called into question the strategy of starting the final-day sessions at 3pm and 8pm.
Dott made it 9-8 with a fine break of 79 this afternoon, after Robertson had potted three reds and on each occasion failed to add a colour.
Robertson took two back-to-back frames, aided by breaks of 49 and 82, and his pontification over whether to play after Dott had fouled lasted almost five minutes.
He eventually put Dott back in and lost the frame.
32-year-old Dott, who had to come through the qualifying stage after dropping out of the top 16 last year, was maintaining his chances of landing a second world title.
He slipped 12-9 behind when Robertson made a break of 51, but Dott ended the session on a high with the first century of the final, a satisfying 112.
Resuming with a 9-7 lead in his first Crucible final, 28-year-old Robertson stayed in front to carry a 12-10 advantage into the concluding session.
