My cue for an all-night party
World champ Mark’s snooker loopy booze session after naked interview
MARK Williams promised to give a naked press conference and go on an all-night bender if he won the World Snooker Championship.
And he stayed true to his word after pocketing the title for the first time in 15 years on Monday night.
The Welsh cueman, 43, addressed reporters in the buff after beating old rival John Higgins, 42, at The Crucible in Sheffield. He said: “Last time I won it, I think I had half a pint of milk and went to bed. I’m not going to bed this time – it’ll be daylight before I get to bed.”
Williams later kept fans updated through Twitter as he racked up the drinks with pals. In the early hours he posted: “5am and there ain’t no sight of slowing up, in fact I’m just warming up.”
An hour later he added: “I said the sun will have to come up, still going.”
And at 11am, after giving the partying a rest, he posted a pic of himself in a hotel bed with pal and fellow snooker player Lee Walker.
Williams wrote: “The morning after, not really sure how I’m in bed with @leewalker147 but who cares.”
His liver must also be in need of a big break, as he added shortly afterwards: “OMG I feel like sh**. #hungover.”
The dad-of-three is the oldest world championship winner in 40 years.
MARK WILLIAMS insists it was just bottle and “big balls” that lay behind a stunning third world title triumph at the Crucible.
The 43-year-old beat longtime ‘Class of 1992’ rival John Higgins 18-16 in a thrilling Betfred World Championship showpiece on Monday night.
Williams, the son of a Welsh miner and who boxed as a teenager, finally landed the knockout blow on Higgins after 34 gruelling rounds.
And the celebrations with wife Jo, who has been seriously ill with meningitis, and his children went on long into the night. Williams, who honoured a pledge to do the winner’s press conference naked if he won, was asked what the likes of Judd Trump and Ding Junhui are lacking in their quest for a first world title.
The player who almost quit a year ago before working with SightRight coach Steve Feeney said: “Maybe the difference is bottle, showing big balls.
“Look at that pink I missed for the title in the 33rd frame, who else could have come straight back and made a break like that to win it in the next frame?
“Maybe John Higgins would be the only one, I’m not sure if Ronnie O’Sullivan or Stephen Hendry would have. I never
thought I would play until I was 50 as Ronnie has said he will, but who knows – if I keep playing the way I am playing.
“The £425,000, is great and the £880,000 I have earned this season will help make up for some problems I have with management companies in the past. “But the first thing I’ll do is go back to our caravan in Somerset and have a few beers having won the tournament, not just watched it on TV like last year.” Cwm’s Williams became the oldest man to win the world title since fellow Welshman and six-time champion Ray Reardon at 45 in 1978. Reardon, now 85 and living in Devon, is from Tredegar – where Williams owns a club and practises with youngsters Jackson Page and Duane Jones. Reardon said proudly: “Mark has always been a lovely player to watch, and whatever he was looking for, he has found it.
“He is in his forties – I would say he is at his peak! I won two world titles, at 43 and then at the Crucible at 45.
“Mark has done that too and there is no reason he can’t go on doing it. It is great for snooker in Wales.”
Scot Higgins, 42, was putting a brave face on a second final defeat in succession, having lost to Mark Selby from 10-4 up 12 months ago.
Higgins, who has won the title four times, said: “I thought last year I might have missed my last chance, but that’s two years I have come through and played well and got to finals – so there is no reason to fall away.”