Migraine almost ruled Jack Lisowski out of Masters quarter-final against Hossein Vafaei – ‘I was nearly in tears’

“I’ve got a migraine at two o’clock so I couldn’t see anything… one of the migraines where you can’t see anything. I was watching the snooker and I thought, ‘oh no’.

“So I turn the lights out, everything’s pitch black and I was nearly in tears because it wasn’t looking good.”

Thankfully, after a three-hour sleep and some food, Lisowski was feeling better – but he wasn’t exactly feeling on top of the world at the start of the match, even if he won the opening two frames.

“I’ve got a headache and I’m not really thinking too clearly, so I don’t know how I done them first two frames tonight,” he said.

All’s well that ends well and Lisowski was elated that he was able to recover and produce a fine performance to seal his place in the last-four of the tournament.

“It feels absolutely amazing,” he said.

“I’ve now won two games, and I feel like I’m just on a bit of a roll. At 4-4, sometimes when you’re bricking it, I feel like it was a little bit enjoyable at time… the drama. And this is why I started playing snooker, times like this.

“I haven’t really got anything to lose in a way because this is my dream.”

Lisowski also revealed that his coach Peter Ebdon, having witnessed him surrender a two-frame lead, told him at the interval that he was ‘pushing the boat out a little bit’.

But he was able to recompose himself to see the job through, and now he can look forward to a semi-final against Mark Williams on Saturday.

“He’s one of the best greatest players ever, so if I can’t get up for that, I can’t get up for anything,” Lisowski said of his upcoming opponent.

Meanwhile, Eurosport’s analysts Jimmy White and Alan McManus were full of praise for Lisowski following the match.

White said: “He’s winning all the time now on a consistent basis. He didn’t play his top game there, but he plays some good safety shots at the end.

“He’s starting to get used to winning, and winning breeds winning. If he keeps going on like this, he’s going to be very dangerous, not just in the semi-final against Mark Williams but going forward in all tournaments.”

McManus added: “He’s learning and he’s learning very quickly. Now, it took him a bit of time, he’d probably admit that himself, but he’s got we know who in this corner [Peter Ebdon] and he’s able to maybe just set some reins on him on occasion and just say, ‘whoa, steady on here with shot selection’, all those types of things.”

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