Neil Robertson wants the World Snooker Championship to replicate the atmosphere on show at the Masters last week, saying the Crucible crowd disappoints him every year.
The Thunder from Down Under lifted a second Masters title on Sunday night, strolling past Barry Hawkins in the final with a 10-4 victory.
This came after beating Ronnie O’Sullivan in the quarters in front of a boisterous crowd and then battling back to beat Mark Williams in the semi-finals in one of the best matches in the history of the event.
The Australian has been lapping up the noisy London atmosphere – as most of the players were last week – and feels other tournaments should try and learn from the spectacle at Alexandra Palace, not least the biggest event on the calendar.
Robertson reckons the World Championship should be the event with the best atmosphere in the sport, but thanks to the two-table set-up in Sheffield until the semis, he just finds it flat.
‘I think this event is always really good,’ Robertson said of the Masters. ‘In a way I feel that this is what the World Championship isn’t. The World Championship hasn’t had good loud crowds, apart from maybe at the one-table set-up, in probably 15 years.
‘I’m disappointed every year I go to the World Championship, I feel the crowd is really quiet, they don’t cheer. It just doesn’t feel like the World Championship anymore.
‘I think for me, and probably a few other players, we probably prefer playing in this than for the world title. The crowd have an impact and only the best can thrive and win under those kind of conditions.’
The 2010 world champion has only been to the one-table set-up at the Crucible once since he lifted the famous trophy in South Yorkshire, and he has no issue with the atmosphere from that stage of the tournament onwards.
However, he wants to see that set-up for more of the event, bringing up an idea he has floated in the past, which is to stage the earlier rounds elsewhere before returning to the Crucible for the semis and final.
‘It’s been a few years since I was at the one-table set-up and the one-table set-up is amazing, it’s just that the journey to get there isn’t great, which I’ve been open about,’ he said.
‘You have the two tables and both crowds are quite reserved in not putting off the other table. Whereas here [Alexandra Palace] they’re just screaming and shouting, so at the World Championship, we should have two set-ups like that.
‘Have the top 16 and the 16 qualifiers, but play it in that kind of environment, you’d still get the crowds, then maybe have the one-table set-up at the Crucible for the semi-finals, that’s what I’d do. But obviously I don’t run the game.’
The 39-year-old also feels the Sheffield venue could learn from some touches on offer at Ally Pally these days, with hospitality available in the Century Club, and despite being distracted at one point during his semi-final by noises emerging from the box, Robertson thinks similar facilities should be at the World Championship.
‘The people that are coming to watch just have to be a little bit careful, but we’d rather have the hospitality and everything because the World Championship doesn’t have any of this,’ he said.
‘The sponsors want to get great value out of tournaments, meeting the players backstage, or hospitality or anything like that, the World Championship has nothing. People can’t have a drink and enjoy live snooker.
‘You’ve seen it on social media already, people wanting the Worlds here, but then this is what makes this special, that it’s the Masters.
‘So it’s up to World Snooker, the Crucible, Sheffield, whatever, to create a venue that’s deserving of the World Championship because at the moment I don’t think it is, to be a little bit negative, but I don’t think so.’
Robertson has admitted that he struggles with not just the atmosphere in the Crucible, but the tight nature of the venue when there are two tables, saying he physically can’t play some shots because of his height and the way he walks into a shot.
He wants to put that behind him this year and in future, though, and will look to do what he feels necessary off the table, to add to his one world title so far.
‘I have to stop making excuses about how tight the venue is,’ the Australian said after winning the Masters.
‘I have maybe been too stubborn at that event where I haven’t surrounded myself with enough of the right people.
‘It is great winning a tournament by yourself, where you are your own mentor or psychologist, but for the World Championship it is different and you need a good team around you because there are so many sessions.’
MORE : Neil Robertson brushes aside Barry Hawkins in dominant Masters final performance
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