HAVE YOU GOT THE McGILL TO WIN?
Hendry tells nice guy Anthony to get tough in chase for first world crown
STEPHEN HENDRY laid down the gauntlet to Anthony McGill and told him to develop a ruthless streak to become a regular Crucible contender.
The Glaswegian will return to the table today locked in a nailbiting semifinal showdown with Kyren Wilson.
A first World Championship final may well beckon for McGill, with Mark Selby leading fellow former champion Ronnie O’Sullivan 9-7 in the other semi.
Hendry reckons the 29-year-old hotshot should not pay any attention to weighty talk of carrying on Scotland’s dynasty of snooker stars.
Instead the legendary seven-time world champion has urged the world No.39 to focus on raising his ambitions to start winning titles on a regular basis.
Hendry said: “He’s pretty down to earth about his abilities.
“In one way that’s a good thing. But then on the flip side, if you keep telling yourself you’re not as good as someone, when you get to the table that’s not a good state of mind to go into a match with.
“You can’t be in awe of people and think you’re not as good if you want to compete. You’ve just got to set your heights a bit higher.
“It also depends what his ambitions are in the game. You have to have ambitions and goals. If he doesn’t feel as though he’s good enough to win and he feels he’s happy enough in a certain ranking position then that’s where you’re going to stay. If his expectations are to just be where he is and to win a few matches then fair enough.
“But it’s all about setting difficult ambitions for yourself and trying to get to that. I don’t really know him as a character, though, so it’s hard to criticise him because everyone is different.”
Hendry, who collected a haul of 36 ranking titles, believes his compatriot has “phenomenal temperament” – having come back from 8-2 down to beat Jamie Clarke – but heavy scoring must follow.
The 51-year-old added: “When he got to the quarter-finals of the World Championship a few years back, I think a lot of people expected him to hang around the top 16 for a long time.
“But for whatever reason he dropped away, so no one would have tipped him to get this far.
“You look at his side of the draw. There was John Higgins, Mark Allen and Judd Trump, so it’s a good achievement getting this far.
“To be frank, he’s got to the semi-final without playing any sparkling snooker. “He hasn’t made a century break, which is unusual because that’s the norm these days. All the players are heavy scorers. “He reminds me of John Parrott – he’s an old-school player. He just does everything well but nothing spectacularly well.”