KEEPING UP WITH THE JONES

Jamie Jones is 10-6 up in the second round of the Betfred.com World Championship.

His only problem is that he is 10-6 up in the second round of the Betfred.com World Championship.

I really hope for Jamie’s sake that he switches off his phone and stays away from his well meaning family and friends. I’ve seen this before: he’ll have people asking him for tickets for a quarter-final he isn’t yet in. He’ll have all manner of noise in his head.

Martin Gould put it best when asked about his collapse against Neil Robertson in the last 16 two years ago: “I’d never been 11-5 up in the World Championship before and I didn’t know how to handle it.”

Here’s what Robertson said about that match and the tournament’s unique pressures in general when I interviewed him 18 months ago: “It’s the true test of snooker on the table and psychology as well, which is what sport is all about.

“It has to be a test of mental strength and the ability to play under pressure. You have to do that consistently well. There’ll be times when you’re behind and have to make big clearances under pressure. You can either do it or you can’t.

“There’s no other tournament like it. Between sessions is what the public don’t see, where you’re sat thinking you should be further ahead or that you’re lucky you’re not further behind.

“It’s all about convincing yourself that you’ve got a good result at the end of the session. Even when I was 11-5 down to Martin Gould I thought, well, I could be out of the match. I was doing everything possible to convince myself that I still had a chance to win.”

In other words, how you spend your time between sessions is almost as important as how you actually play.

Jones looked set to go 5-2 down to Andrew Higginson but Higginson missed a black in frame seven which would have left Jones requiring three snookers. Requiring only one, the 24 year-old Welshman duly got it, won the frame and then the next four.

Leading 9-6, he spectacularly doubled the final black to carry a four frame lead into tonight.

You would rather be 10-6 up than 10-6 down but this evening’s final session will be the biggest of Jones’s career. Three frames doesn’t sound much but it could still be a very nervy night.

I thought Ronnie O’Sullivan was at times unplayable in claiming an 11-3 lead over Mark Williams yesterday. To his credit, Williams reduced this to 11-5 but a comeback seems unlikely.

Far closer are the matches between Judd Trump and Ali Carter, in which Trump leads 9-7, and Matthew Stevens v Barry Hawkins, which is poised at 8-8.

Carter felt Trump was unduly lucky. I tend to agree with him, but nobody wins a 25 frame match solely because of luck.

Stevens did well to win the last two frames against Hawkins and remain in touch. It’s going to be another dramatic day.