Monique is right. It is downright stubbornness not to learn to use the rest. It cost him one World Final against Murphy (the left-handed shot) and it's cost him numerous matches since then. I cast my mind back to Bernhard Langer when I think about why Matthew hasn't won more. Langer was the worst putter on the European Tour statistically. He had the yips badly and couldn't sink anything from within 6 feet (not literally otherwise he'd still be on the first
) but he went away and concentrated solely on his putting working day and night, and he came back and topped the putting stats on the European Tour a couple of seasons later. From worst to best. Amazing story.
I'm up to 4-3 in the match earlier today and at 4-2 Carter did get a bit of rub of the green. A couple of yellows attempted pots with swerve both landed safe, then he fluked the brown but played a brilliant do or die black to get to 4-3. But there was a telling sign yet again from earlier in the frame.
Faced with a straight forward rest shot red which would have gained ideal position on the black, Matthew chose instead to take on a more difficult red. He got the red, landed not ideal on the black, and got the black but left the same red he turned down earlier. He couldn't reach it so he used his extension and missed it by about 6 inches.
When someone who could have been so good has such an obvious failing you really have to ask why doesn't he address it instead of ignoring it. He thinks he can win with a game which involves taking every alternative to using the rest. And the stupid thing is, I don't remember seeing him miss that many shots when he does use the rest.
And yes, also he does do a lot of walking around the table when under the cosh, and re-studying balls when they haven't moved and the shot to play is there to see. His head is obviously in bits and for that I feel very sorry for him because it's hard when you are feeling the pressure and he obviously feels it a lot. When you're under it you sometimes see problems that aren't there. But this is not going to go away, it will only get worse unless he takes positive steps to address his flaws and the age of 33 time is starting to run out but he still has time to learn how to use the rest and bring it into his game instead of pretending the problem doesn't exist.