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Вот что пишет Дженифер, еще одна болельщица Джона.
Afternoon sessions are all about keeping things possible. And both matches did that. I like snooker so far. It’s World Champions 6, Other People 2. Everyone’s wearing beautiful white shirts today except Mark Selby, but Mark Selby had all his stuff stolen from his hotel so I’m trying not to judge him for his wardrobe choices.

Higgins vs Liang, 6-2

John Higgins won the first frame with a big break thing, and the commentators (Ken and John Virgo) pretended that it’s a great start for him, but it’s not, it’s the worst start possible. He’ll probably lose the next 7 frames out of confusion.

“Another surprising miss from John Higgins.” You can’t go through your life being surprised when John Higgins misses things, John Virgo. It’ll exhaust you. He didn’t miss many things, though. He made some centuries and everything. It was nice. He didn’t lose the next seven frames, he went to 5-0 instead. I like 5-0.

(In the third frame John Higgins failed to get a 147 and that was awful,because he was FINE until he wasn’t and he snookered himself ever so unhelpfully, and I feel like I haven’t seen him get a 147 for FOREVER, even though I think he got one a bit ago, I don’t know, I don’t actually have a memory. In the next frame he potted the white, and wrecked up the reds, and generally forgot about potting and position for a minute while he got over it. But somehow pulled himself back together and won in the end anyway, 4-0. We’ve seen 4-0 before, and how it means nothing to John Higgins, but the commentators are acting as if the match is over now.

After the mid-session John needed all the points on the table, and started picking off reds and blacks, and he didn’t get on the final red and they played around it a bit and then John potted it, fluked the black and totally stole the frame which is just *mean*, but it was John, so I didn’t care and just thought it was clever.)

Then I went to the loo and sorted stuff out in the kitchen and rang my mum, and Liang won a frame.

Then they shared the other frames, and sometimes John looked quite super, and I am assuming Liang will play a bit better tonight, but maybe John will hold things together and be alright. Please.

O’Sullivan vs Selby, 6-2

Ronnie O’Sullivan sounds really properly relaxed about things in his pre match interview and he’s saying all the things he always says about how snooker isn’t his life, it’s just his hobby, and he doesn’t care if he can’t play snooker. But he does sound much more honestly calm about things than he did. I’m starting to like the beard thing, if I think of it as a beard, and not just as stubble. It’s clearly just a mess, but they call it a beard.

No one said how beautiful Ronnie is today. Poor Ronnie. Terry and Dennis spent a while being sad about how they couldn’t probably beat Ronnie at snooker, but Dennis suggested that they could probably beat him at tiddlywinks. And Terry said they would certainly win at shaving. ♥ I love Terry.

In the first frame Ronnie missed a quite easy yellow and Terry said “he’d have got that if it was later in the match” in just the most reassuring tone, and suddenly I sort of realised again how entirely lovely it must be to have Terry be your coach and just quietly say reassuring things about your game. And he was right, Ronnie eventually got in and made points and won a frame.

Ronnie got 60 something in the second and then let Mark Selby in, and just looked so AMAZINGLY BORED at Selby being at the table, which is always a good sign with Ronnie. I know him getting bored is not new, and not always good, but he looked the sort of bored that meant he’d rather be potting things, rather than bored in that he’d rather be running.

Selby won a frame while I was concentrating on helping Higgins (fail to) get a 147.

It went 3-1, and then Selby had every chance to steal the first one after mid-session, just as Higgins was stealing from Liang. I was paying attention to John, but Selby missed an easy-ish(?) blue, and didn’t win. John won. Because John is best.

Then I went to the loo and sorted stuff out in the kitchen and rang my mum, and when I came back they’d each barely scored any points and the commentators were going ‘well that went on a bit’ and saying that maybe Ronnie just hated the referee and in my head I imagined a big screaming match had maybe gone on, but apparently not. Had Ronnie made a miss, and then complained that everything wasn’t really right when they were putting the balls back, but refused to help? He seemed quite cheery about it. But lost the frame.

Anyway, they’re at 6-2 now, and that is good. It is much better than 5-3, which it nearly was.