Jimmy White scored a huge win at the Northern Ireland Open on Monday as the 62-year-old beat Hossein Vafaei 4-2 in one of the craziest matches you will see all season.
It was a big upset for the veteran to beat the world number 24 and the Whirlwind admitted that it was a very unusual contest with a number of situations you hardly ever see on a snooker table.
‘It was very tough, I’m desperate to try and get a win, get going,’ White told Eurosport. ‘A couple of times I’m on 40, go into the pack, nowhere.
‘My safety was alright, but there was a lot of mistakes, a lot of misses. It was a bizarre game.’
He added when speaking to World Snooker Tour: ‘It was bizarre, it was really weird.’
Vafaei set the tone early when in the first frame he tried to pot the brown but saw the ball hop out of the jaws of the green pocket, roll along the rail and drop into the yellow bag.
Neal Foulds on Eurosport commentary said: ‘That’s about a once in every five year fluke, extraordinary. It is a legal shot, in case you were wondering. I have seen that, probably in all the years, seven or eight times.’
That was an odd moment but it had nothing on the controversy of the final frame of the match when Kevin Dabrowski called a very rarely-seen foul on Vafaei.
White had gone in-off, so the Iranian placed the ball in the D to play his next shot, at least he thought he had.
Vafaeipotted a long red but the referee immediately called a foul and said that the white ball was outside the D when he played the shot.
There was much confusion as Vafaei questioned the decision and asked for a replay to be shown but Dabrowksi stuck to his call and White came back to the table.
It was extremely close but the referee was adamant, with former Masters champion Alan McManus agreeing with him on Eurosport after analysing the footage.
There were plenty of other incidents as well, with both players giving away fouls while playing with the rest and White handing an icnredible 36 points away while trying to get out of one snooker, then going on to win the frame!
The Whirlwind also progressed without making a singel half-century as Vafaei’s 55 was the highest break of the match.
The six-time World Championship finalist now faces Martin O’Donnell in the last 32 in Belfast on Wednesday and is feeling great after downing the Prince of Persia.
‘I’ve been playing some really good stuff but when you’ve not got any confidence…listen it’s a great win for me,’ he said.
‘I enjoy practicing, enjoy doing exhibitions, enjoy entertaining. I still make 147s and now and again I have a little buzz where I can beat anybody. It’s not as consistent as it was but I think that will come with a few wins and that was a decent win for me today.’
White has played on the World Snooker Tour with an invitational tour card, but he earned his current one through the rankings after some impressive results a couple of seasons ago.
‘I got mine on merit the last couple of years,’ he said of his place on tour. ‘Barry Hearn did say to me, what I’ve done for the game, as long as I keep playing in all of the events then I’ll keep getting the wildcard, but it’s nice to get it on merit.’
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