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Leeds player refuses to get carried away by snooker shootout performance

By Jamie Woodhouse and Seb SternikĀ 

World Number 51 David Grace has said he can’t read too much into his snooker shootout performance, despite making the quarterfinal stage for the first time in his career at the 2017 competition.

Leeds-based Grace, 31, beat Kyren Wilson, Tian Pengfei, Dominic Dale and Cao Yupeng before being knocked out by former world champion Shaun Murphy.

The snooker shootout is an exhibition-style tournament, where the player who scores the most points in 10 minutes is declared the winner. Unlike traditional snooker, players must also complete each shot within 15 seconds. This is reduced to 10 seconds for the remaining five minutes of the game.

Reflecting on his run to the quarterfinal Grace said: “It’s only a short format so you can’t read too much into how you play, but it’s nice to pick up some wins especially on TV.”

Grace also believes the ranking points picked up from the competition are not significant: “I don’t think the points are going to make too much difference really. The winner and runner-up will have a little boost but the points are not as much as some of the bigger tournaments.”

The snooker world championship, the biggest tournament on the calendar held at the crucible theatre in Sheffield, is just over a month away but Grace thinks it will be a huge challenge just to qualify for the first round: “I’ve got to qualify first which is a task in itself. I have to win three best of 19 matches to even get to the crucible. So that will be my first aim and I will take it from there.”

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