MC HAMMERED FOR OFF NIGHT

The MC in Mumbai Derek Sippy had by his own admission a terrible time of it calling in the players and officials for the second set of quarter-finals on Friday evening with a scheduled start time of around 9pm. A lengthy and emotional speech from honoured VIP guest and Indian national acting treasure Anil Kapoor, more of which elsewhere, had already delayed things before Sippy took the mike.

With the usual booming delivery he first of all introduced the referee on Table Two as Germany’s Marcel Eckardt. There was a long pause before Malta’s Terry Camilleri slowly walked out into the arena staring intently at Sippy, who reacted eventually: “I got that wrong – it’s Terry Camilleri!”

With Camilleri and Eckardt finally announced for their right tables the players were next. “On Table Two…The Gentleman, Joe Perry!” roared Sippy. The only slight problem being Perry was playing on Table One against Ricky Walden, with Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Mark Davis due to be called out on Table Two. “It’s all going wrong tonight,” lamented Sippy, and no one – including Kapoor and tournament director Mike Ganley standing, or more accurately hopping alongside – was about to disagree.

Earlier in the week the referees had enjoyed a joke at Sippy’s expense by telling that Olivier Marteel’s nickname was ‘The Belgian Truffle’ which he duly relayed to the audience, and the hapless MC , who seemed to be heavily reliant on Wikipedia for some of his background work, also introduced Jan Verhaas as ‘Belgian’ and player Yu Delu as ‘Noodles’.

POSTER BOYS BITE THE DUST...AGAIN

The curse of the local promotional poster is a fairly well established phenomenon in snooker, even allowing for the fact that it is not easy to pick the winner of any tournament these days with a large clutch of possible victors. The Indian Open duly saw the four likely lads all eliminated before the quarter-finals even in a weakened field – Ding Junhui and Judd Trump, and less surprisingly home hopes Aditya Mehta and Pankaj Advani.

GET YOURSELF TO THE GYMKHANA

Back in the UK, a gymkhana generally means some kind of equestrian event in accepted use.         But the term is originally an Indian one meaning ‘place of assembly’, and if you want to get the cue out and have a game of snooker in Mumbai you might well end up at either the Bombay Gymkhana or the Hindu Gymkhana clubs, which also boast other sporting and leisure facilities. With these at the upmarket end of the spectrum and India battling to rid snooker of an elitist image in the country, there are also ‘snooker parlours’ in many of the larger cities operated more on a pay as you play basis, but those in the Mumbai region have been affected by problems with licences, something the BSFI is urgently addressing.

BOND SHAKEN BUT NOT STIRRED

The effects of all the travel undertaken by the professional players, particularly the way it affects sleep and eating patterns, can be easy to overlook in the modern game. Even before the opening ceremony dinner former World Championship finalist Nigel Bond admitted he felt unwell having arrived in the small hours and not eaten or slept well, and was briefly taken ill during the evening. Happily a medical check-up revealed nothing seriously wrong, and the 49-year-old Bond from Darley Dale recovered well to get through his wild-card round match 4-2 against Faisal Khan the following day.