Life now looking greener for Hill on the baize

A hugely successful underage player at home and abroad, Cork's Aaron Hill, set for his latest appearance at the World Championship qualifiers, has already had career ups and downs.

LOOKING GREENER: Snooker star Aaron Hill Pic: James Crombie, Inpho

Planes, trains and automobiles? That was only the half of it. Throw in a ferry, a bus journey and a couple of spins in a car or a taxi into the mix and the backdrop for Aaron Hill’s first visit to China finally starts to cobble together.

It got going in Llanelli, of all places, at an U16 international tournament. There was a 3am boat back to Rosslare, a flight from Dublin, a stopover in Dubai and at least two more modes of transport to reach the city of Jinan for the World Youth Championships.

“It took us about six weeks to get there,” Hill remembers.

Five years later and he was back again, for the Wuhan Open. A fully-fledged professional player by now, the man from Cork won three times to reach the quarter-finals of his first ranking tournament where Wu Yize had his number in the deciding frame. It was a memorable week on the sport’s distant frontier, on and off the table.

“It’s different gravy altogether, boy. We’re like Premier League footballers over there. We get treated like royalty. I was there in October and I had heard players talking about how well you are treated, but I didn’t think it was that extent. It was unbelievable.

“After my first match there were loads of people waiting outside my hotel to take pictures and get autographs. By the time I got to the quarter-final I nearly had to dodge them because there was so many of them. I took it all in and enjoyed it all because it’s not every day you get that sort of treatment.” 

It really isn’t.

Ken Doherty wrote about the naivety that he carried into his professional career along with the £500 in his pocket. He had expected red carpets, cameramen everywhere and glamour. His first event, slugging it out in “small, soulless cubicles” in a freezing cold Blackpool in October with next to nobody watching, set him right.

World champion in 1997, and to this day one of the best-known players in the game, Doherty told how a downturn in performances and results had led him to a Pontins holiday camp in Prestatyn a dozen years after that career peak, for the qualifiers of the Shanghai Masters.

The route from players' room to arena took him through Captain Croc’s Adventureland where a bunch of characters including Zena the Hyena were entertaining the kids who weren’t busy with the go-karting or football on offer. One man recognised him and actually asked if Doherty was still playing.

“The Crucible it isn’t,” Doherty deadpanned.

If that can happen to a former world champion then it stands to reason that those further down the food chain are far from immune to the same vacillating fortunes and Hill, ranked 62 as he braces for his latest appearance at the World Championship qualifiers in Sheffield this week, has already had his own ups and downs.

A hugely successful underage player at home and abroad, it was his victories in the U18 and U20 European Championships that earned him his professional touring privileges. Beating Ronnie O’Sullivan at the 2020 European Masters made headlines but he lost his card before earning it back again at the first attempt.

“I thought it was going to be all sunshine and rainbows when I got on. I thought it would be luxury. ‘I’m professional now, I’ve made it’. Especially beating Ronnie so young. I was unfortunate too that I got on when Covid started. It’s only this season and bits of last season where I’m starting to experience the tour at its best.

“I didn’t realise it would be that tough, to be fair. It takes a lot to do well. There’s not many players will get on tour the first time and stay there. I dropped off the first time but got straight back on. I’ve taken everything I learned and all the experiences to get where I am now in the rankings. There’s no way I would have got where I am now first time around.” 

Where he is is 62nd in the world rankings and well set to retain the tour card - that golden ticket – for another two-year spell. This is “the most comfortable” he has felt on the tour. There are still nerves but his record in qualifiers has been good and those are the games that make or break up-and-coming talents.

Still only 22, Hill has the talent and the work ethic to go far. He spends chunks of time practising up in Antrim with world number three Mark Allen. Jordan Brown, who beat O’Sullivan in the final of the 2021 Welsh Open, is another member of that group. So is Robbie McGuigan, who won the European amateur title last month.

His own year has delivered notable wins against the likes of Mark Selby and Jack Lisowski and he has chalked off some victories against some of the game’s legends too. Jimmy White had to concede defeat in the European Masters and Doherty fell 4-1 in the Scottish Open. His shot at a first World Championship appearance comes next.

English amateur Daniel Womersley, a 32-year-old who has been working the Q Tour and Challenge Tour circuits for some years now, stands as the first hurdle. If Hill is to make the Crucible he will have to follow that up with wins against Matthew Selt and Joe O’Connor who stand as world numbers 35 and 30 respectively.

He beat O’Connor 5-4 in the World Open in their one and only meeting so far back in January so it can be done. The key is doing it more often. Most of the players on tour can play top-eight snooker. Doing it against the top players under the bright lights is another thing, but Hill has the self-belief and the big-time brass to handle it.

“A lot of people would shy away from playing Mark Selby and these lads but it’s the opposite for me. I raise my game and thrive off those pressured atmospheres and I probably struggle more against a player ranked around me on the outside tables than I would against Ronnie on the main table. I’d rather have it that way than the other way around.”