GRAEME DOTT READY FOR HOME COMFORTS
FORGET about the loneliness of the long- distance runner, what about the loneliness of the longdistance snooker player?
With a calendar incorporating diverse venues such as Shanghai, Macau, Belfast, York and Crawley, exponents of the sport these days must spend hours on long-haul and internal flights, splashing their hardearned cash on Travelodges and hotels across the globe, sometimes only to get knocked out in the first round and have to make a quick return.
No wonder Graeme Dott has a special affection for the BetVictor Scottish Open, which gets under way at the Emirates tomorrow.
“My children are getting on now – Lucy is 10 and Lewis is 14 – so this is pretty much the only tournament they can get to, although it might be a bit late by the time I finish,” said Dott, from Larkhall in Lanarkshire. “The nicest thing of all is that win, lose or draw in 20 minutes I will be back in my own bed. It is nice to have that for a change because the whole tour is living out a suitcase.”
This will be the third running of the Scottish Open under its current format and home in the east end of Glasgow, the seventh incarnation of a Scottish leg on the world snooker tour which dates back to the 1981 International Open.
Dott, who was world champion in 2006 – still one of only two ranking titles he has won – reached the showpiece of this Scottish event once, the 1999 Scottish Open when it was held in Aberdeen. The memory of his first final is not a happy one though, being crushed 9-1 by Stephen Hendry.
“It doesn’t feel like the same tournament now, because it has been changed that many times,” says Dott. “But Stephen just steamrollered me.”
Now 41, Dott was a first-round loser in this competition last year but he played encouragingly in a final-frame defeat to last year’s Scottish Open champion Neil Robertson at last week’s UK Championships.
One of a group of fortysomething Scottish stars still plugging away, Dott was not greatly shocked to hear John Higgins – a beaten finalist in Sheffield each of the last two seasons – talking about considering quitting the sport after last week’s defeat to Alan McManus. Dott has spoken candidly in the past of his own battles with depression.
“I wasn’t really surprised to hear John talking that way because it is a tough sport mentally,” Dott said. “John will tell you himself that he’s not been putting a lot of work in. But I am pretty sure he won’t chuck it. I think he would have more reason to think that way if he was putting the work in and was still getting results like that.
“He’s lost the hunger just now at practice. And we all get that. I don’t have massive hunger myself, to be honest. The older you get, the harder it is to put the work in. But I am sure eventually he will get the hunger back and his results will turn, because he is way too good.”
Dott takes on talented Chinese 20-year-old Xu Si in the first round this week, as players attempt to take home the Stephen Hendry trophy. Theoretically there was also a £1 million prize pot if someone could win all four Home Nations trophies, but the first two were shared between Stuart Bingham and Judd Trump.
“Nobody wants to go back to the way the tour was, because there are lots of opportunities to win money now, and that is what people want,” he said. “But for the older guys it can be quite tough. You are away from your kids quite a lot. That part of it can be hard.
“In the old days it would feel like a proper tournament, with 16 or 32 players. Nowadays there are 128, and it feels like an old-fashioned Pro-am. You are playing on table eight with nobody watching.
“That part can be really, really demoralising. It can be hard to motivate yourself.”