Pudong Airport in Shanghai is a crossing point for many people traveling to China, from where they take their direction towards their final destination.
The snooker professionals are on their way to Daqing, with a population of three million, which is located 2,300 kilometers north of Shanghai. The purpose of the trip is one of the biggest tournaments of the snooker year 2016, the International Open.
Snooker professionals traveling the world are used to the downsides of air travel, such as checked bags being left on the trip. Each player queuing for the plane at Daqing has a backpack on their back, which has something to put on and other substitutes for luggage confusion. This is also how the person standing in line works Robin HullFinland’s only snooker professional.
However, one player deviates from the mainstream.
– Luca Brecel sat in the corner on the floor while others queued for the plane. Yes, he smiled when the boy sat in just a t-shirt and jeans and chatted on his cell phone, Hull recalls.
The moment described by Hull falls at the end of October, when night frosts are common in Daqing and the average temperature hovers close to zero.
– The guy wasn’t stressed much, even if the stuff hadn’t arrived. Despite the fact that it had certainly happened to everyone traveling the world for work. A mobile phone seemed to be enough, says Hull.
On Monday, Hull got to witness how the carefree players of yesteryear were crowned snooker’s first continental European world champions.
In the final, Brecel knocked down the four-time champion, known as one of the greatest competitors of all time By Mark Selby batch 18–15. Brecel won the championship with a very aggressive style of play that his teammates Ronnie O’Sullivan’s and of Stephen Hendry in the lead have praised the competition.
– These were super good World Championships in every way. There was drama, new faces and of course Brecel as the crown. Every professional would like to play like Brecel, says Hull.
At the right time in the right place
Luca Brecel is from Maasmechelen in northeastern Belgium. Before Monday, a city the size of Kerava was not known for its World Cup medalists.
Before Brecel, the most visible sports personality was a sprinter Patrick Stevenswhose CV includes the 200-meter bronze from the 1994 European Championships in Helsinki and seventh place in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic final, which is remembered among other things by Michael Johnson from a memorable ME run.
Brecel was born in 1995, which was a favorable era for the development of Belgian snooker. Patrick Delsemme had made headlines in Belgium in 1991 when he reached the final of the Under-21 World Cup in India. In the final, he had to acknowledge the other Ronnie O’Sullivan.
Delsemme was in the finals the following year as well, but Finland’s Robin Hull celebrated the youth world championship in Brunei.
Delsemme never reached the top 100 on the world list as a professional. However, he started a boom that he continued Björn Haneveer.
At his best, Haneveer was ranked 53rd in the world in 2004. In the same year, Brecel started playing snooker.
Success came quickly. In 2010, Brecel won the European Amateur Championship as the youngest player in history, aged 14. He became a professional in 2011 and a year later made his debut at the World Cup in the Crucible theater – again the youngest in history. At that time, Brecel was only 17 years and 45 days old.
11 years later, Brecel achieved his first career win at the Crucible – and went all the way to the end.
Brecel revealed before the World Cup semi-finals that he had prepared for the tournament by focusing on partying, seeing friends and playing darts instead of training.
– Nowadays, we make it very clear that such a lifestyle is not relevant in competitions. Brecel has admitted it himself, says Hull.
Before this year’s World Cup, the Crucible Theater had become a kind of troll for Brecel. His five previous World Cup appearances were cut short by an opening round loss.
It’s a crazy assessment that Brecel wanted to break the formula and consciously take it easy before the current year’s World Cup.
Top snooker coach Stephen Feeney signs Hull’s review.
– It’s easy to take Luca’s words out of context and see them as a disrespectful way to approach the game. I would rather use the saying “you shouldn’t feed a lion before it goes hunting”, Feeney tells Urheilu.
– It is easy to overdo the preparation. Luca definitely wanted to avoid that and be ready to play the full 17 days.
Parents’ workload
Brecel differs from the majority of professionals not only in his playing style but also in the fact that he has not moved to Britain.
Among other things, Brecel returned to his home in Maasmechelen when he had won Ricky Walden’s in the opening round of this year’s WC tournament.
Brecel usually travels to tournaments and qualifiers organized in Britain with his father Carlo or his mother Mirella riding him. The 750 km car journey from Sheffield under the English Channel to Belgium and Maasmechelen takes eight and a half hours.
– His family has supported him all these years and driven him anywhere in Britain. Few people understand what kind of mileage they are talking about, says Feeney.
The Brecel World Championship gives more impetus to the Belgian snooker boom, which is the product of juniors who have achieved success in prestigious tournaments playing on the professional tour Ben Mertens18, and Julien Leclercq20.
– Brecel is such a breath of fresh air to the game that thanks to him snooker’s position as a sport is strengthened. I believe that it is also reflected in the financing of the sport in Belgium and other European countries, says Feeney.
Brecel is only the third world champion from outside Great Britain and Ireland in the modern era of snooker, which is considered to have begun in 1969. Before him, only Canada Cliff Thorburn (1980) and Australian Neil Robertson (2010) had managed to lift the most coveted trophy of the sport.
If there are more external champions, Feeney believes that snooker will face a discussion about the venue of the World Championships. The Crucible Theater has served as the World Cup arena continuously since 1977.
– The opinion of the British players is certainly known to everyone. However, it would be interesting to know, just for fun, whether Brecel would be willing to defend his championship in his home country. I love the Crucible Theatre, but the pressure on its status will increase if winners start coming from Europe and China, says Feeney.
A hard road
The 2023 world champion could well have come from China as well. Brecel rose from a 5–14 deficit to a 17–15 victory over the Chinese in the semi-final Si Jiahuita against.
In the semifinals, Brecel defeated O’Sullivan 13–10, taking the last seven rounds of the fight. Before this, Brecel beat the three-time world champion by Mark Williams 13–11 and experienced Ricky Walden’s 10 to 9.
In the final, the setting was different. Selby went from 10-16 down to 15-16 until Brecel managed to take the last two sets.
– He won the championship by facing both sides of the pressure: he won when he was the chaser and the chased, Feeney states.
Hull praises the way Brecel handled Selby’s challenge.
– It is really difficult to deal with such a situation. Brecel is pretty much the only guy who can pull it off like that. His game can practically disappear in an instant, but it can come back just as quickly.
– Instincts overcame the pressure, and the courage to play at the bottom took over. Many people would have shriveled up, but that’s exactly why the end was so great from the eyes of a competitive player, Hull praises.
The Finn signs O’Sullivan’s statement in which the seven-time world champion named Brecel as an artist.
– Ronnie said it well. Brecel is an artist. His game is like art, where the senses play a big role.
– If we go back to the initial question, what is Brecel like as a person, he is a really nice and relaxed guy. His attitude to life pretty much matches what he represents on the snooker table, says Hull.