The first snooker to travel to the UK: it was harder to see a genius before_snooker_snooker_snooker

Xingpai pool table. Because of the emergence of a competition system in which amateur players can compete for the qualifications of the main tournament through selection, Guo Hua appeared in this year’s Shanghai Masters.

Guo Hua, born in 1971, has reached the age of forty. Some old fans who pay attention to snooker may have some impressions of him. On the page of Baidu’s profile about billiard player Guo Hua, it is written that the title given to him by fans and the media-the first person in Chinese billiards.

In 1994, Guo Huana obtained professional qualifications and became the first player in China to enter the professional snooker arena. More than 20 years have passed. The world snooker scene has undergone many changes and the top players have changed, but Guo Hua still has a bit of nostalgia for the professional arena. This time, although he lost to Robertson 1-6 in the wild card round. But being able to step into the professional arena again is a very good experience for Guo Hua.

After the game, he came to the press conference and started a dialogue with Sina Sports.

Robertson, who won a good start, came to the press conference room before Guo Hua. Regarding the opponent’s performance, Robertson showed a gentleman’s demeanor, “I think Guo Hua still played well. He still created some difficulties for me in this game. He played better with safety balls.”

In fact, Guo Hua, who has been out of the professional field for a long time, is not satisfied with his performance. He said to Sina Sports: “I haven’t played high-level, large-scale competitions for too long, and I am still a bit uncomfortable with the rhythm of the game. The strength has not been shown.”

Currently, Guo Hua runs a company related to billiards. In addition to the label of a businessman, he still participates in billiards tournaments in his free time. In this competition, he relied on his rich experience to stand out and got the qualification for the main event. “I know that there is this competition, I want to try it out and see if I can have this ability. Fortunately, I still got the qualification for the wild card. ”

After seeing his opponent in the first game, Guo Hua asked Mark Williams, the champion of this year’s World Championships, and got advice from the latter, “I don’t have the idea that I can definitely win him, Mark Williams. The advice to me is to lead the first few games.”

But after all, Robertson is a top player who is not as strong as Mark Williams. It is not easy for Guo Hua as an amateur to win a round. “I am not used to the game after I play, after all, the opponent I’m a top player. I haven’t participated in this type of competition for many years. When I feel a little bit, the opponent’s hand feels warmer than me.”

Tonight, when stepping into the arena that is shining in the spotlight, did Guo Hua’s thoughts be pulled back to more than twenty years ago? At that time, he was young and brave, and headed to England with an uncertain future.

“At my time, snooker was not widely popularized in China, but cities in the south, such as Guangzhou, became popular first. Now with a better game mechanism, there are many more ways for young players to become professional players than we did at that time , They are eager to go to the UK to become professional players.”

If you compare the conditions of the current young players with his own at the time, Guo Hua will naturally show envy, “I can’t speak the same way. At that time, I was completely at my own expense, now I have sponsorship, and there are standardized training places. , It’s ok to play well with peace of mind. At that time, we had to consider a lot of things other than the table. They may not be able to train like they are now, so their success rate is much higher than ours at that time. I have to think about how to make money. There are registration fees, food and accommodation expenses, and I can only earn bonuses by playing games in China, which will cause a lot of pressure on me.”

In the snooker world in the 1990s, Davis and Hendry, the two kings of the world, divided the history of snooker into two stages, and they each “leaded” for a period of time. By the end of the 1990s, O’Sullivan, Higgins and Mark Williams “75 Three Masters” also began to bloom. In the professional arena where strong players are like forests, Guo Hua appreciates the taste of winning and losing. “At that time, Davis and Hendry were in their peak form. I am more difficult than them (referring to the young players now).”

After leaving the professional arena, Guo Hua’s career began to change. He did not hit the professional arena again, but changed his role to continue to engage in billiard-related work. “If I train like a young player and go to the UK, right It’s not very realistic for me now. I can no longer compare to young players in terms of physical fitness, but I am more experienced than them.”

How does he view the current professional Taiwan scene? He told Sina Sports frankly: “I don’t think there has been a real snooker genius in these years. Players of the level like Hendry and O’Sullivan can’dominate’. In Taiwan, I have not seen such a player yet. It may take decades or a hundred years for such a genius to appear. I still don’t see any outstanding young players in China. Young players have made great progress. , But not many outstanding.”