Is there a lack of young players in Snooker?

Anthony McGill beat Kyren Wilson in the Indian Open Final last July

Recently people have been waiting the "next generation" to come over and take charge of the game. But in fact recent years have seen the average age of players in the Top 16 go up dramatically and people have been wondering if the reason for that is the lack of quality young players appearing.
Recently I asked Ronnie O`Sullivan how long does he think he'll keep at the top of the game and his answer was "65! I can't see anyone better than me or Higgins coming".

However, I've got a complete different opinion. It's fact that we normally see elder players now having success in the game but that for me is a result of some players peaking "late" and proving the others that if you prepare yourself physically and keep motivated you can get into your 40's in good shape and be able to win titles.
In fact we never had so many people playing Snooker, that's because Snooker is growing considerably around the World and it's now one of the leading "Global sports" really and as consequence we have more young players involved and they're quality players.
This year we had a record number of entries for the QSchool and we so often see maximum breaks being made in Under 21-18 tournaments (here's one from a 16 year-old) nowadays.
But why aren't these players already featuring at the top of the game? Because the "best age" in Snooker have changed, now players know they've got to keep fit until their 40's because that will mean winning a lot more, so we have players at their 40's, 30's, 20's and teenagers doing well in the game at the same time and experience has suddenly become a very important factor. Though with events running virtually every week nowadays and with all of them being on TV it has become a lot easier to make that experience and the standard of the game being higher than it's ever been is the result of it, in my opinion there haven't been a better time to be a Snooker fan. But obviously, in the big tournaments the elder players tend to do better thanks to their experience.

It's not easy though to come into your 40's preserving your form, it requires dedication and motivation and some players end up being satisfied enough on what they've done and lose their appetite for practice a bit, probably the case with Mark Williams for example. Anyway some might not be at the Top, but they're still tough competition for the young players.
A proof that the standard age for Snooker have changed is:

• Ronnie O`Sullivan have won the Welsh Open and The Masters since his 40th birthday, and came into the World Championship this year as heavy favourite;
• John Higgins, who recently became 40 as well, won 3 Ranking Titles last year;
• Alan McManus, 45, made the Semi-Final of the World Championship this year for the first time since 1993;
• Darren Morgan, 50, made the Semi-Finals of the Riga Masters while Nigel Bond, 50 as well, made the Semis of the Indian Open;
• It's not all about 90's players doing well again though, Mark Selby entered the elite group of players who've won multiple World Titles at the Crucible and he's the only in it that never won the World Championship on his 20's and had to wait 30 years to get the his first one;
• You probably see Thepchaiya Un-Nooh as a young talented player, and in fact he has appeared to the World of Snooker in recent years and has got at the very least a decade ahead of him to play the game at his best. But he's 31 already and that's completely different from what we used to call a "young player" some years ago.

The conclusion we reach is that now you can have a much longer career and you're unlikely to peak before your 30th birthday, in my opinion you just get experience enough to get amongst the Top Players when you're 30-33 years old. That said, we still got a few special exceptions like Michael White, Kyren Wilson and Anthony McGill, these players are gonna be huge and surely be always battling against each other for the World Title in the future, because they'll have a lot more experience at the top than their opponents.
I never like to say someone is a future World Champion, there are many who've been called that way and never achieved such thing, and there are many that did it unexpectedly, but you know when something special is going and that a certain player will be one of the greats whether he wins the World Championship or not, and Yan Bingtao, 16, seems to be something special. I've been watching him play since he was 13-14 in Asian Tour events or Chinese Ranking Events as a wildcard and you couldn't tell how young he is by watching him, he's always playing the right shot and pressure situations seem to suit him despite the low experience he's got. And who's to say he's not one of the greats already, last year at 15 he won the World Cup for Chinese B team alongside Zhou Yuelong who was then aged 17. In fact Bingtao was the big force of the team that beat favourite Scotland in the Final making a Century in the very first frame vs John Higgins proving how good he can be when the pressure is on.

So don't worry, Snooker is not struggling to get young players involved, probably there are more kids and teenagers playing Snooker than there's ever been, we definitely are in good shape even that the Rankings or the late stages of the big tournaments ain't showing this yet.


But there are two "old school" players attracting my attention at the moment, they've been very successful in the past and dominated the game in the early noughties but despite still being young enough they've been struggling to find form and dropping in the Rankings.
They're the Welshmen Matthew Stevens, 39, and Mark Williams, 41. I believe both are young enough to win the World Title (another one in William's case) but for different reasons they're not looking strong enough to make it.
Stevens seems to have improved his game a bit this season, recently he divorced and announced bankruptcy but he seems to have gone over it now. The problem is that currently Stevens is ranked 42 in the World, he's always having tough draws and it'd take something special for him to storm during a week and win a title that should bring him back to the Top 16 or get him close to it but although he's got potential for it, Stevens has to be patient and keep winning a couple matches here and there, and climb the Rankings slowly. He's 39 so he definitely would play his best Snooker again and if he ever does that he's more than good enough to win the World Championship, what he has proved by reaching the Final twice narrowly losing both after storming ahead early.
Mark Williams is 41 but I'm sure age is not something that blocks him from performing his good Snooker yet. The thing with Mark is that I think he feels satisfied with his career and feels he's done enough, what fairly enough he can be. However I look at him sometimes and think he has underachieved, despite the fact he was only the third player ever to win multiple World Titles at the Crucible. He won the World Championship for a second time in 2003, 3 years after winning his first one, but since then the "Welsh Potting Machine" never ever made another Final and if you have heard of him recently he's got no ambition to win another World Title neither think he would.
Honestly, I don't think he can win the World Championship playing like that either, but he certainly should be able to play his best Snooker again if he'd put more hours in like John Higgins for example, seems to do. But Williams himself have lost appetite for it and we can't blame him, I just hope there don't come a time where he'll look back and think he should've won a couple more titles and then it's too late to try again. Mark Williams won his last World Title aged 28, and since 2005 only one player won the World Championship at that age (Neil Robertson in 2010),  the others were all older, that includes Stuart Bingham winning his maiden World Title at 38 what means Williams should in fact have won a few more if he had kept the high standard.
Of course we all know that if Matthew Stevens and Mark Williams get back to their best form the standard of the game would raise and Snooker would be the winner in the end, so we hope they do it soon.


This is it, thanks for reading! Remember that this week we'll have the Shanghai Masters (from 19th to 25th September) with live broadcast on Eurosport. You can follow results from China and anything else on Snooker at Ronnie O`Sullivan Brasil on Facebook.