Parents’ drive helps Mcgill move into semi-finals

Anthony Mcgill had to endure a marathon frame to reach the Dafabet English Open semi-finals but, thanks to his parents, he knows it’s a privilege to “tough it out” on a snooker table.

His father is a lorry driver, who Mcgill estimates earns about £500 per week, while his mother is a nurse. By beating Neil Robertson 5-3 in Barnsley on Friday afternoon, the Glaswegian earned himself at least £20,000 and even defeat would have seen him pocket £10k.

With that sort of reward on offer, the 26-year-old admits he can happily tolerate frames such as the 61-minute seventh which he clinched against Robertson.

“I’ll tough out every frame – I don’t care if every frame is an hour,” said Mcgill after the win. “My Dad goes to work 15 hours a night, five nights a week and he gets 500 quid. I only tough it out for a few hours and I get crazy money.

“My parents work much harder than me for much less. It’s a privilege to be toughing it out. Of course I’d love to just be able to go down and make a century break every frame like [Ronnie] O’sullivan does but if the balls go awkward and you need to fight for it, then just fight for it – it’s fine.”

Mcgill is now just two victories away from winning a third ranking event of his career – a best-of-11 semi-final on Saturday and the best-of-17 final on Sunday.

But with his two previous titles being the bestof-seven Indian Open and the ten-minute, one-frame Shoot Out, the world No 16 claims the English Open would be by far his greatest triumph.

“The tournaments I’ve won haven’t been the biggest,” conceded Mcgill. “The next stage would be to win one of these because it goes up now – best-ofnines, best-of-11s, best-of17s. This would be my best tournament win.”