Neil Robertson’s World Snooker Championship quarter-final clash with John Higgins was delayed due to a wobbly chair, with maintenance men called in to fix the issue during the match. The Aussie was 3-2 up against his Scottish counterpart when play was stopped to address the issue.
Robertson, who defeated Chris Wakelin and Pang Junxu to reach this stage of the competition, was spotted messing about with the wobbly chair midway through the fifth frame. BBC commentator Dennis Taylor said: “Just heard Peggy Lee the referee chatting to Neil and yeah the seat’s a bit loose. I’ve never seen that before! I remember back in the 70s rain stopped play but I’ve never known of a loose seat stopping play.”
Maintenance men were then called in to screw the seat back onto its podium, with both players moved out of the way and played delayed for a few minutes until the seat could be fixed. They were also forced to pause during shots on the other table, so as not to disturb Wu Yize or Hossein Vafaei.
During the break of play, BBC presenter Seema Jaswal said: “Apparently there’s a slight issue with Neil Robertson’s chair, not quite sitting correctly. I don’t know what has happened there but they’ve had to get maintenance in to help fix it.
“How about that Stephen? Anything like this ever happen to you? There might be a slight delay in us getting back to the action, a bit of time for them to think and reflect on what’s just happened.”
Seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry said: “Definitely not. I mean what’s happened?!”
Fellow pundit and snooker legend, Steve Davis said: “It’s all gone Goldilocks!”
It was a bizarre series of events in a high stakes match, with Robertson and Higgins vying for a place in the World Snooker Championship semi-finals. It was a slow start to the match from both players, with Higgins making six unforced errors in this opening session.
The snooker icon came through a classic against Ronnie O’Sullivan yesterday, but wasn’t anywhere near his fluid best against Robertson. Higgins came from 9-4 down in that match, with three centuries before getting the win over the line.
The 50-year-old took the first frame, but Robertson responded with a break of 77 to claim the second and then third. While Higgins responded with a break of 56 to level again.
The incident with the chair didn’t deter Robertson, who had a break of 70 to go ahead and win the fifth frame.