Top 10 moments of 2022/23 snooker season: No. 1 – Luca Brecel wins World Championship with heavy metal brand of snooker

No. 1 – Brecel’s heavy metal snooker bewitches Crucible

While he emerges to the walk-on sounds of Insane in the Brain by Cypress Hill, the intensity of his crash, bang, wallop, all-out attacking style is more like Black Ball Sabbath, Motley Crue with cue in hand as he moves rapidly to the thunderous sound of his own beat.

The thin line between genius and insanity is perhaps never truer than finding the fine lines on a snooker table during the annual World Championship stress test.

Come on feel the noise inside the Crucible Theatre was all the rage in April and May with Brecel on the rampage leathering the back of the pockets with a unique, high-risk, high-reward strategy some would have suggested tantamount to sporting hara-kiri.

Who knew that the percentage shot was old hat?

He sank a few more with a magnanimous Mark Selby – perhaps the ultimate match-player of the modern era – in the final aftermath of his riotous run to the sport’s loftiest prize in a style previously prohibited in snooker’s speakeasy.

It was a remarkable, trend-setting rise to the throne having failed to win a match at the intimate venue in five previous attempts.

His pedigree at the World Championship – he had also failed to qualify for the Crucible on six other occasions – nor his adventurous style of play hinted at such a spectacular flowering in spring.

Certainly obeying no law of logic previously seen over the other 46 years in the Steel City.

Brecel joined Joe Johnson (1986), Terry Griffiths (1979) and Shaun Murphy (2005) as the only men to have lifted the world title having never previously won a Crucible contest.

“After my record here, not winning a game after five attempts, I wasn’t expecting to win it any time soon,” he said.

“To win it this year is absolutely amazing. It was the same thing that Joe Johnson did in 1986, never winning a match here and then winning it.

“It’s a dream come true and whatever happens now in my career, I can say I’m a world champion.

“I am only 28, with so much time left in my career. Hopefully, there are many more to follow.”

Jimmy ‘Whirlwind’ White and Judd Trump – with his naughty snooker becoming a particular trademark selling point – in years gone by came closest to reaching the summit by throwing caution to the wind, but Brecel’s energised ability to lay waste to his opponents by potting his way out of trouble had to be seen to be believed.

His semi-final with the formidable Si Jiahui and his technically superior talents is probably ripe for a Crucible thesis, one for academia to pore over in future years as a sort of three-day, off-piste potting carnival when both men were content to go for broke apparently without a care for consequence.

It provided millions of viewers with an epic high-wire routine that made the era of ‘Steady’ Eddie Charlton resemble a relic of the woolly mammoth beyond the days of wine and roses when the lovable ‘Big’ Bill Werbeniuk lathered himself with pints of confidence in his Crucible chair.

Such are those fine, unforgiving margins of professional sport.

Brimming with self-belief in devouring even half-chances, Brecel led Selby from start to finish in the final, but was forced to fend off a trademark late rally from the four-time champion – who can win any which way but loose when the mood takes him – as his lead was cut from 16-10 to a measly 16-15.

Brecel regained his gait with closing breaks of 51 and 112, his fifth century of the final, seeing him finalise the £500,000 first prize and the fabled old trophy first lifted by the 15-time world champion Joe Davis in 1927.

Davis and Brecel neatly bookend snooker’s vast development over the past century, and the hectic modern mental demands of a game within a game.

Brecel has dispensed with the accepted norm in snooker that any player attempting to win the World Championship, the most challenging competition in any cue sport across the planet, must have a Plan B to fall back on.

“I love winning, but I don’t mind losing and that’s a dangerous combination to have,” said Brecel. “I always play the same game, people say I don’t have a B game but I do, I just don’t use it.”

When plan A isn’t working, give them more of Plan A.

Brecel also remains the youngest player to appear at the Crucible. He lost 10-5 to Stephen Maguire in his World Championship debut aged 17 years and 45 days in 2012.

He has matured, but his natural game is remarkably raw. Which provides wonderful audience engagement.

The major difference appearing to be that he misses less these days rather than become consumed by curbing his enthusiasm.

“He’s a potting machine isn’t he? He’s one of the fastest players I’ve seen and he’s fearless,” said former UK champion Maguire back then.

He could easily have expressed the same sentiments 11 years later regarding Brecel, who is a young man playing a younger man’s game.

How Luca solved Crucible conundrum

2012

• Lost 10-5 to Stephen Maguire first round

2017

• Lost 10-9 to Marco Fu first round

2018

• Lost 10-6 to Ricky Walden first round

2019

• Lost 10-9 to Gary Wilson first round

2022

• Lost 10-5 to Noppon Saengkham first round

2023

• Won 10-9 v Ricky Walden first round
• Won 13-11 v Mark Williams second round
• Won 13-10 v Ronnie O’Sullivan quarter-finals
• Won 17-15 v Si Jiahui semi-finals
• Won 18-15 v Mark Selby final

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