Yan Bingtao has been criticised following his victory over Mark Selby at the World Snooker Championship, after breaking an ‘unwritten rule’. Bingtao ended Selby’s title defence after defeating the world No.2 13-10 over the weekend.
The clash was one of the great World Championship matches, with the pair playing out a mammoth final session that saw the longest frame in Crucible history. The remarkable stand off lasted over 85 minutes, before the Chinese potter finally prevailed.
Whilst Bingtao put in a remarkable performance on the table, his sportsmanship was questioned by two of the sport’s biggest names in Jimmy White and Alan McManus. The criticism came after the youngster appeared to be struggling with a tricky shot, before asking the referee to clean the ball.
White accused Bingtao of trying to gain an advantage out of the ball cleaning, and commended the referee for refusing. He told Eurosport: “Bingtao has looked at this shot for over a minute and he’s not sure if he can pot it or not. He keeps getting down to pot it and then he asks Rob Spencer [the referee] whether he can clean the cue ball.
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“Now that is an unwritten rule amongst professional snooker players. Fair play to [referee] Rob Spencer for saying ‘No, I’m not going to clean the cue ball’ in this situation because he could put that cue ball back slightly wrong and then Bingtao can have an easy shot at this brown.
“But as it turns out he could pot the brown. It is something you don’t do. It might have been Bingtao being under pressure and thinking of anything to win, but you don’t do that in snooker.”
These sentiments were also echoed by McManus, however the Scottish star did sympathise with Bingtao and put his actions down to his potential lack of experience and cultural differences. He said: “We don’t know what was in Yan’s mind, as to how underhanded he was thinking.
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