Ali Carter gets his campaign underway at the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters with a ranking title under his belt already this season and he is confident that there is more success to come.
The Captain got the season started in ideal fashion, winning the Championship League to take his tally to six ranking titles.
The 45-year-old missed the trip to the Xi’an Grand Prix after losing in qualifying, but he feels that was a blessing in disguise as he is fully refreshed and ready to go this week as he looks to land the huge top prize of £500,000 in Riyadh.
‘It was a dream start to the season really,’ Carter told Metro. ‘Then I lost a qualifier to Daniel Wells for Xi’an. I wasn’t all that motivated to go there knowing I was going to Saudi the week after, so I ‘ve had a month chilling and enjoying myself and the batteries are fully recharged to go for the rest of the season.
‘You can get a bit burned out, especially at the stage I’m at in my career, so it’s 100 per cent a positive to have a month off before the season really gets going. The season starts now, for me.’
Six ranking titles puts Carter alongside the likes of world champions Ken Doherty and Stuart Bingham on that particular list, with just 15 players in the game’s history ahead of him.
On whether he thinks about where he stands in the pantheon of snooker champions, the Captain said: ‘It doesn’t cross my mind, but it’s nice to get to six ranking titles. There’s probably only 10 or 20 of us that have won six or more, so to be ranked alongside one of them is good.
‘But I don’t feel like I’m done yet, I’m probably playing the best I ever have. I’ve won two events in the last two years, with two or three more finals. I’m doing something right, keep knocking on the door and I think I’ve got more tournaments in me, to try and get up to eight or 10.
‘You don’t really look at what you’ve achieved, you’re always looking at what you want to achieve. It’s like climbing a mountain, you’re putting one foot in front of the other and staring at the floor but you should look at the view on the way up.
‘It’s important to try and look at the view rather than get caught up on the conveyor belt of trying to achieve. Actually I’m doing well, winning tournaments, going to all these places, earning a good living, top 10 in the world, it doesn’t get much better!’
Carter comes in at the last 32 stages in Riyadh where he will take on Elliot Slessor after World Snooker Tour realised there had been a mistake in the presentation of the draw and it was corrected on Monday.
The Captain would have been facing Yuan Sijun had the error not been amended, but he is not losing sleep over the change.
Asked if the surprising late switch bothered him, he said: ‘No, not really. Mistakes happen, although I don’t quite know how it happened.
‘It doesn’t really matter who you play although there are players you’d rather avoid. I don’t really want to play [Neil] Robertson, I don’t really want to play [Jack] Lisowski or [Dave] Gilbert in his current form. If it had changed to one of them I wouldn’t have been a happy bunny. But I’ve got Elliot Slessor, so there’s no easy games, I’ll have to be on my game whoever I play.’
As the tournament in Riyadh has been played down to the last 32 crowds have been very thin on the ground, with just a handful of people at the Green Halls watching the matches so far.
Carter says there is work to do to build the sport in the region, but expects numbers to increase now the top 16 have arrived.
‘Pretty sparse,’ he said of the crowds so far. ‘But it’s about building something here and that’s what we’re trying to do. This is the first year we’re here, they’ve laid it on big, we’re trying to build it up.
‘Obviously from the outside looking in, you turn on the tele and there’s no one here, but you’ve got to give it a chance. That’s all we’re here to do, promote the game, give a good account of ourselves and we’re all pleased to be here.
‘I’m sure it’ll get busier. Tournaments in the UK from the start with the lower-ranked players aren’t busy. When the top players come in it starts getting busier.’
There has been much talk of the possibility that the World Championship could move to Saudi Arabia after the contract with the Crucible ends in 2027 and Carter admits the money on offer would be extremely tempting, but the atmosphere would not be up to scratch at this point.
‘I think from a player’s point of view we want to earn as much money as we can,’ he said. ‘If they bring the World Championship here it would be a massive event.
‘But we also want to play in front of a packed crowd with an atmosphere. That gets the best out of the top players. Like at Ally Pally for the Masters, you get great matches because of the atmosphere and the crowd. That would be missing here at the moment, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.’
On the crowds in Riyadh, a WST spokesperson said: ‘Tickets have sold well for the final weekend so it’s a similar pattern to the UK, with crowds building as the week goes on. This is the first year of a ten year partnership and we will be working to build snooker in this region for the next decade and beyond. The reaction of the players to the venue and conditions has been overwhelmingly positive.’
It is true that the players are loving the opportunity to play for the huge money on offer in Saudi Arabia, but criticism over sportswashing remains, as it does with all sports that have taken the riches on offer from the Kingdom.
Asked for his take on the situation, Carter said: ‘My opinion is I think there’s so many bad things going on in the world everywhere you look.
‘We’re out here trying to make a living, promoting our sport, I’m here to provide for my family. Whatever people do in their own lives is up to them, but you can’t criticise other people. Everywhere you look there’s problems. No one lives in an ideal world.
‘We’re here to play sport, sport brings people together and that’s what we’re here to do.’
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