It may not have been as exciting as one would have expected between these two contestants, but they are two of my favourite players and I wanted to watch and report on this match regardless of how it played out. Their last contest was in 2017 – technically, it was the Hong Kong Masters but their epic at the WSC that year was the more memorable occasion.
The opening frame commenced with a good safety bout from both players. Both Robertson and Fu had chances at opening pots but did not secure them. Fu then had the first real chance but slightly overcut a red which allowed Robertson to win with a break of 75. Fu then seemed to have found his rhythm in Frame 2 where a tuck-in behind the brown opened an opportunity for Fu to make a break of 90.
It took a couple of visits for Robertson to take Frame 3. A strong opening pot powering through the pack saw a break of 49 where a tricky cutback on the black didn’t leave him in a position to continue the break. However, an impressive pot a couple shots later led to a break of 50 for Robertson. Robertson then extended his lead by making an exact break of 100 in Frame 4 – capitalising off a long pot attempt from Fu.
Frame 5 opened with a good long pot by Robertson but he misplayed a canon to make a substantial break to close out the match. A further tentative long pot attempt from Robertson left Fu in to make a break of 50. Robertson had a couple bites of the cherry but to no avail. A couple of good snookers from Fu gave him the chance to wrap up the frame despite a lengthy attempt from Robertson to claw it back for victory. Then the final frame saw some weak shots from Fu to allow Robertson to make breaks of 36 and 35 to clinch victory.
It was a shame that neither of these players went on further in the English Open but that comes with the nature of a flat 128 draw tournament like the Home Nations. As seen countless times before in snooker, a best-of-11 match could have led to a completely different result than a best-of-7.
Robertson would have preferred to make further ground in this event to try and continue his momentum from last year. Ideally, he would be wanting to have the form that Shaun Murphy has had in this season so far. At this point last season, he had won the Riga Masters and came runner up in the International Championship.
As for Fu, he needs to get the confidence back that he had a few years ago. This can only come from a big win, even if it was a non-ranking event. He was missing pots that he ordinarily wouldn’t have missed in this match and I am always hoping that another win is in the near future for Fu.