28.10.06

WHITE FACES TESTING MONTH

Jimmy White faces a testing month which could ultimately have a huge bearing on his professional future.

The 44 year-old will be in Prestatyn on Thursday for the Malta Cup qualifiers where he’ll have to beat Andrew Higginson, Jamie Jones or Shokat Ali to face David Gray in the final qualifying round.

Failure to advance to the final stages in Portomaso would put even more pressure on White for the UK Championship qualifiers, which start on November 14.

White will have to beat one of Mark Joyce, Jeff Cundy or Robin Hull to reach York, where only victories over Nigel Bond and Neil Robertson would see him make the televised phase.

These matches are vitally important for White. He will be 51st in the provisional rankings when the list is issued after the Royal London Watches Grand Prix and will be off the circuit altogether if he slips lower than 64th by the end of the season.

At least the Whirlwind doesn’t have to go to the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield for the Masters qualifiers, which start on November 4. He has, as expected, been given a wildcard for Wembley.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please could you tell me who John Parrott has to beat to get to York, and who he could play there.

GSC hasnt posted the draw yet

Anonymous said...

Ignore that, just went and looked at WorldSnooker.com and they have it posted.

What do you think of Parrotts chances against Tian Pengfei/Mohammed Shehab or David Gilbert?

Dave H said...

I'd make Tian favourite, although he's an unknown quantity over best of 17s

Anonymous said...

Dave,

I have to say that Jimmy has got to turn it around NOW or he will never get back up the rankings. Even if he does make it, David Gray will be tough opposition for him, being old training partners...

Speaking of David Gray...I read a piece in The Guardian about how dull Snooker is and featured a big picture of David Gray during his match with O'Sullivan.

Did you ask him at the post-match press conference where his thoughts were as O'Sullivan hit the winning ball? He just seemed like he wasn't with it....

Thanks, Joe

Dave H said...

We didn't interview him but he was probably thinking how unlucky he'd been to draw R O'S