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Lack of new talents

Postby Vallomas

There was a clue about the lack of new talents in the WSC final thread and I think it's a good topic for discussion, because I agree 100%.

It's quite disappointing to see only three players in their 20s on the top 16, especially when the two of them (Trump and Allen) have dropped their output the recent years. In such age Hendry, O' Sullivan, J. Higgins, MJ Williams etc. had already won the WSC! And now, I remember that we considered as hope for the future players like Wasley ot M. White, who are already 23-24 years old and don't have any title yet!

All this definetely proves that there is a lack of new talents in snooker. Just give a look at the ages of the top 16 players of 2003/04, only ten years ago:

1. Mark Williams (29)
3. Ronnie O' Sullivan (28)
4. John Higgins (28)
5. Stephen Lee (29)
8. Paul Hunter (25)
9. Matthew Stevens (26)
12. David Gray (25)
13. Graeme Dott (26)
14. Quinten Hann (26)
16. Joe Perry (29)

Ten out of sixteen players were in their 20s, including the contenders of the world title (along with Hendry and Ebdon who were under 35, too). Huge difference, don't you agree? Especially when many of the top players of 2003/04 are still inside or near the top 16 today!

Discuss.
Last edited by Vallomas on 07 May 2014, edited 2 times in total.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby GJ

Its a pattern in a few sports.

In tennis the average age of top 100 players has increase in recent years.

So its a real mystery tbh.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby vodkadiet

GJ wrote:Its a pattern in a few sports.

In tennis the average age of top 100 players has increase in recent years.

So its a real mystery tbh.


The younger generation are too busy tweeting or posting on FB to have time to practice.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Wildey

Vallomas wrote:1. Mark Williams (29)
3. Ronnie O' Sullivan (28)
4. John Higgins (28)
5. Stephen Lee (29)
8. Paul Hunter (25)
9. Matthew Stevens (26)
12. David Gray (25)
13. Graeme Dott (26)
14. Quinten Hann (26)
16. Joe Perry (29)


only 16 under 30 in the top 64 these days

5 Chinese
4 England
2 Indians
2 Wales
1 Belgium
1 Scotland
1 Northern Ireland

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Sickpotter

vodkadiet wrote:
GJ wrote:Its a pattern in a few sports.

In tennis the average age of top 100 players has increase in recent years.

So its a real mystery tbh.


The younger generation are too busy tweeting or posting on FB to have time to practice.


rofl

I freakin hate social media, just wanna punch these morons who can't look away from their phones :irk:

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Roland

That is an interesting point. Certainly the players who grew up with relatively few tv channels to choose from and where sport was first being seen as a genuine source of income was the generation of children of the 80s and early 90s and those are the ones in the 35-45 bracket now. That generation didn't have the social media and games consoles distractions of the next generation. It probably has a lot to do with it.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby GJ

Jack Lisowski seems to have disappeared off the radar completely , I thought seeing his mate Judd do well would spur him on.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby GJ

Out of the young players I see 2 having big futures.

Xiso
M White

I think those 2 have a solid temperament and if they practice hard they will both be top 16 soon.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Alyt

Because now at school we teach our boys to be like girls, we killed the "father figure".

The lack of young players is also due to the fact that young guys stay at home instead of going to the pub, where they could practice, drink a few and find some girls.

I dont know about UK but here pool/snooker in pubs is dead. Very hard to find a pool club.

Is there more snooker halls in UK than 20 years ago?

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Sickpotter

GJ wrote:Jack Lisowski seems to have disappeared off the radar completely , I thought seeing his mate Judd do well would spur him on.


Judd's drifted off course though since his earlier successes. IMO went to his head and he reverted to a normal teenager, ignored practice, partied too much, etc.

I think Jack followed him along for the ride and his game suffered too.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Vallomas

And Luca Brecel had a disappointing season, too. Two years ago he was considered as the next big thing, it was impressive that he managed to qualify for the World Championship at the age of 17. But where was he the next two seasons? I am not optimistic now that he can achieve something really big.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby GJ

He's been a big disappointment for sure.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Skullman

Luca's still young and has time, although he does seem to have gone backwards a bit. When he qualified for the Worlds, he beat a number of tough old match players, whereas now, he seems a bit casual about shots sometimes. Hopefully he;ll start to show something in the next few years.

Think the problem is that players rarely push on from good achievements. Luca's done nothing since that UK quarter. Jamie Jones has disappeared off the radar, barring a couple of good runs in PTCs. Cao Yupeng? Nothing this year.

Mike White is starting to get some results consistently, as is Xiao.

Another note, just realised Allen is now 28. Not that young any more.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby GJ

Allen is a mystery , very good bottle and quality break builder.

Can only think like Maguire he doesn't practice enough

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby AC or LT?

It's become a lot harder to bunk off school for weeks on end and the cost of snooker tables in clubs has gone up, it doesn't take a genius to work out that this combination kills any chance of a new generation of snooker players with the talent of the 90's generation.

I'm going to set my stall out here and say that within the next 10 years 5% of the tour will be over retirement age.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Wildey

Skullman wrote:Luca's still young and has time, although he does seem to have gone backwards a bit. When he qualified for the Worlds, he beat a number of tough old match players, whereas now, he seems a bit casual about shots sometimes. Hopefully he;ll start to show something in the next few years.

Think the problem is that players rarely push on from good achievements. Luca's done nothing since that UK quarter. Jamie Jones has disappeared off the radar, barring a couple of good runs in PTCs. Cao Yupeng? Nothing this year.

Mike White is starting to get some results consistently, as is Xiao.

Another note, just realised Allen is now 28. Not that young any more.

yea he is still young but if hes going to emulate some of the greats which his talent surely deserves he has to get a move on surely.

Luca will start this season in the top 64 so will avoid playing top players in the last 128 and he could get to more and more venues and hopefully get up that ladder

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Wildey

you know people talking about Selby being a late developer but he did reach a Ranking final at the same age Luca is now.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby GJ

Robbo is the prime example of a late developer.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby TheRocket

GJ wrote:Robbo is the prime example of a late developer.


Neil is now a better player than he was 4 or 5 years ago but he won the World when he was 28. Seems to be a a young age in todays Snooker, if you consider, that the last player who won the World in his (late) twenties was Graeme Dott in 2006 (apart from Neil).
Last edited by TheRocket on 07 May 2014, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Alex0paul

Problem is the game is all about attacking nowadays so all the juniors are pretty much exactly the same.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby GJ

Rocket

Robbo made his first ranking final at 24 and if you compare that to the other big names it suggests he's more of a late developer.

The improvement in him between his worlds debut in 05and winning grand prix in 06 was remarkable.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby GJ

Alex

Good point alot of the young players seem to have no interest in developing a safety game and continue to make the same mistakes.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Skullman

You need to have a safety game to survive against any player. If you don't, the journeymen will eat you alive and the other young guys will clobber you unless you're really on it.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby TheRocket

GJ wrote:Rocket

Robbo made his first ranking final at 24 and if you compare that to the other big names it suggests he's more of a late developer.

The improvement in him between his worlds debut in 05and winning grand prix in 06 was remarkable.


No doubt. If you compare him to the likes of Hendry , Ronnie or Higgins he must be regarded as a late developer. But things have really changed over the last years as this thread also wants to say.

We see how players like Bingham, Hawkins and Mark Davis have reached their peak in their 30's and players who are already 24 or 25 are called talents.

But anyway. I think, Neil basicially himself said that he is a late developer, if I remember correctly he said in that interview with Ronnie that he wasn't good enough in his early years.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Skullman

Well I'm sure Neil started playing later as well (13 or 14?) whilst players like Judd started around 5.

Funny, as Hendry started reasonably late as well and ended up being the most prolific winner of ever, while Robbo is the most prolific winner of his generation.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Alex0paul

Hopefully in say 5-10 years time we will have an explosion of young players coming through from the continent

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Sickpotter

Too many who grew up watching Hendry/Ronnie run rack after rack failed to realize that Hendry and Ronnie are unique talents and not everyone can run racks as consistently as those two not matter how much practice you put in.

Hopefully Selby's performance this year has shown what a player should do when confronted by a superior breakbuilder/potter and how tactics is every bit as important if not more than breakbuilding and potting.

Re: Lack of new talents

Postby Paddpotter

vodkadiet wrote:
GJ wrote:Its a pattern in a few sports.

In tennis the average age of top 100 players has increase in recent years.

So its a real mystery tbh.


The younger generation are too busy tweeting or posting on FB to have time to practice.


When I was growing up in the 90's I had a snooker hall five minutes from my door and there was no such thing as mobile phones or the internet. So potting balls into pockets seemed like a good thing to do. But today... even kids that are into snooker have so many other distractions going on that it was always inevitable the standard of players coming through would slip.

Younger people's brains are wired differently these days to move from one thing to another very quickly. Snooker simply does not fit with this new generation of brain patterns.