UK Open

This man left his own ship, he abandoned it, and he's threatened to many times since as well.

Ronnie O'Sullivan, 2006 UK Open quarter-final against Stephen Hendry, trailing by four frames to one, and just a standard mistake on a red, and he shakes Stephen Hendry's hand, shakes the ref's hand, walks out the arena, goes to the car park, goes home.

Which, what an example to set as well to young snooker players coming through.

It's unthinkable to me.

See...

The thing is, though, he made the final of the UK Open and the World Match Player last year.

And they didn't pick him.

And he's made two quarterfinals and a final so far this year.

grind.

Yeah, I get that.

I mean, maybe as well, again, I mean, I'll always say that the UK Open is up there.

I know people will go, what? But it's because you don't know who you're playing.

Why not dance? Love that.

The new major, is it going to be a replica of the UK Open, but in Germany? I'm not sure if Google translated it properly, but that's what the German article was saying.

I think

there'll be a few twists on it, but yes, basically that.

You don't get nothing if you lose your first round.

These are all good things to make sure that the quality level goes to a certain size.

But when it comes down to opportunity, I think things like we saw it with the UK Open, the Players' Championships is the next one to look at and say, If you're good enough to be a professional darts player, we've got to make sure you've got lots of opportunities to change your life.

You know, we have a ranking list.

Again, you know, he's...

You know, he was the UK Open runner-up.

You know, World Match play...

I completely

Are we not classing the World Cup as a major?

Hashtag what's a major? Are we not classing that? Because if that's the case, then the Premier League selection is going to be interesting.

If I can refer you to the promoters' website, that they advertise their Premier events as the World Championship, the Masters, the Premier League, the UK Open, the World Cup of Darts, the Match Play, the World Series Final, the World Grand Prix, the European Championship,

the

Here we go.

Y- it says, "UK Open Newport."

Yeah.

Wearing the official-

We're here specifically to talk about your time.

This isn't about me, this is all about you, this episode, uh, talking all about, uh, Age of Sigmar Grand Tournament.

Um, as you mentioned, this UK Open, the first one of its kind in Newport, um, that's sort of been outside, um, Warhammer World.

I want to say...

William O'Connor took out a £4,000 loan to go play darts.

He did a good run at the UK Open that year, which paid off a lot of that debt.

And he's been there ever since.

Success story.

It's James Wade achieving things.

So we have to have that conversation because he's been a controversial... omission in recent years to the to the premier league and i for one felt he should have been there this year he is continually adding that with with so few winners of trophies There are so few different names lifting trophies at the minute that if you can make back-to-back UK Open finals and make a match play final, you can go to the quarterfinals of the Masters match play.

Whenever you're on the telly, you're doing things.

Then have some photographs in recent memory of you lifting a trophy in the air.

He is, without a shadow of a doubt, up in the top three, four players in the world at the moment.

Oh, 100%.

The interesting thing, Phil, is, like, I like James, I always like to watch him play, I think in some ways I like the fact that other people don't like him as much, and it gives me a giggle, it makes a good banter, but there was, like, a period of time, when he had that race, the UK Open final, and he followed it up with a match play final last year.

I think lots of people were thinking, well, there is a gap, obviously, between those.

I gave it up.

Yes, I played in the UK Open, but other than that, that's pretty much it for me because I don't count my BD.

I mean, getting to the quarters of the Dutch Open was pretty massive when there was like 8,000 entries, but you've got lots more of that, but I get what you're saying.

You you'd almost, if you had that one big win or that one big fight, like if you could sit here now and say, oh, do you remember 2013 when I made the semis of the world match play? That'd probably be enough for you, Matt.