Given he is number four in the world rankings and won a tournament last week, some find it hard to believe Mark Williams’ claim that he doesn’t practice, but Jackson Page insists it is true.
The three-time world champion became the oldest ever winner of a ranking event when he beat Shaun Murphy to win the Xi’an Grand Prix last Monday.
The 50-year-old has now won 27 ranking titles and is the first player to win a professional tournament in every decades from his teens to his fifties.
Not only is it remarkable that Williams is still lifting trophies in his sixth decade, but especially so because he says he barely picks up his cue between tournaments.
‘It’s unbelievable. I cannot honestly believe how I’m still winning tournaments, it’s amazing,’ he said after his Xi’an triumph.
‘I don’t know how I’m doing it, I’ve got to be honest. I’m not practicing enough to really compete in the latter stages of tournaments because I just can’t do it these days.
‘But here I am, when I’m at the venues trying to play as much as I can and you’ve got to scrape me off the table until that last ball is potted.’
He added: ‘I’m not putting any hours in. It’s very rare I’m in the club. I’m not playing much at all. Some people don’t believe me but it doesn’t make any difference if they believe me or not, it’s true. I go to the venue and try and cram in as much practice as I can.’
Page plays in Williams’ club and would once describe him as a practice partner, but says the veteran is spot on when he says he is hardly in there these days.
‘Not one bit,’ Page told Metro on whether he sees much of Williams in the club nowadays. ‘Even if he does come in he does my head in a bit because he comes in for two frames and then he goes! He’s never in there.
‘First two rounds, probably, at the comps he’s maybe a bit vulnerable but after that, you let him get into the comp then he’s on the tables all day every day at the tournaments.
‘And he’s one, they don’t need a lot of practice, they’ve been doing it for 60 years! It’s unbelievable. He’s a freak. I couldn’t do it.’
Page is hunting down his first ranking title and continues that search at the Northern Ireland Open this week, but didn’t arrive in the best form.
The 24-year-old made the quarter-finals of the recent English Open, beating Neil Robertson and Shaun Murphy before losing a decider to Mark Selby, but didn’t feel he was hitting much rhythm even on that run and has suffered disappointing defeats since.
He has started in perfect fashion in Belfast, though, beating Steven Hallworth 4-0, and hard work might be starting to pay off, especially with understandable distractions now being less distracting.
‘I can’t really say I’ve played well,’ he said. ‘I got to the quarters of the English, didn’t play great, I beat some good players but didn’t play brilliant. Then it’s got worse, really.
‘I’ve worked really hard this week, grinded through all the bad to get to the good. I finished off well there [against Hallworth], so hopefully I can push on.
‘I’m always practicing but I’ve had stuff going on in the background. My baby is 10 months old, I bought a new house, I started the shop [AJ’s Trading Cards], it’s always been a personal hobby but it’s bound to take effect.
‘But we’re all moved in, the shop’s going how it’s going, so I’m fully focussed on snooker now so hopefully I can start playing better. We’ve been moved in about a month, we’re over the moon to be there and my son’s good as gold, he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’
Page has the tough task of facing world number one Judd Trump in the next round in Belfast, but will be pumped up for the challenge.
‘It’s a weird one, I’m more up for that than playing anyone else and more often than not I get better results against them [top players] than the lower ranks,’ he said. ‘It’s strange. I do get up for it more, it’s just fact.’