Snooker star earns £50k in 44 minutes after potting just 10 balls in Saudi defeat | Other | Sport

Kyren Wilson earned a huge amount of money in just 44 minutes as he crashed out of the Saudi Arabia Snooker Championship. The former world champion was sent packing by Neil Robertson, who secured back-to-back century breaks on his way to a whitewash victory. The best-of-seven contest was over within an hour as Wilson was dumped out in his very first match.

While any one-sided defeat is painful, the man from Kettering will be able to console himself by looking at his bank balance. He picked up £50,000 in prize money just for turning up at the prestigious event in Riyadh. That is despite Wilson only potting 10 balls over the course of his match against Robertson.

He has struggled for form this year, having suffered early exits at the Wuhan Open, British Open and English Open. Last month, he explained that concerns over his wife Sophie’s health had impacted his focus on snooker.

Speaking to the World Snooker Tour, Wilson said: “My wife has been very poorly so I’ve not really played snooker for the best part of four or five weeks now. I think she’s coming up to about six weeks of recovery, so I feel like my snooker is slowly coming back.

“I’ve started to put a bit more time in, I can focus a bit more on my game. As a result, hopefully you start seeing the results that you’ve been used to.

“It’s not nice knowing that someone is going to be on the operating table while you’re going to hit some snooker balls around, but that’s the sort of sacrifice that me and my family are willing to make to be successful at this game.”

Wilson’s heavy defeat to Robertson came after John Higgins launched a scathing attack on the conditions in Riyadh, namely the height of the table.

After beating Ding Junhui, he said: “We really struggled with the table, as if there were beer mats underneath the whole table and it was raised up. Somebody really needs to get told.

“I don’t know who has passed that but it’s pathetic for a million-pound tournament. It really is bad. I don’t know who’s passed that.”

Quizzed on the specific problems that arose, Higgins replied: “I don’t know, just no grip whatsoever. You could probably see in the first couple of frames I’m trying to stun and it’s just rolling through.

“You can’t stop the cue ball. I couldn’t stop the cue ball with my cue action, but maybe some of the other boys will find it okay.”