‘Cracking atmosphere!’ – Mark Williams vaults wall during walk-on for semi-final at European Masters

ByEurosport

Published 20/08/2022 at 21:53 GMT

Mark Williams is one of the quickest players on the World Snooker Tour, and he was in a rush at the start of his European Masters semi-final encounter with Barry Hawkins at the Stadthalle Fürth on Saturday night. The 47-year-old cut his walk-on short by vaulting over a wall. He may have been eager to get things underway, but his hopes of making the final soon unravelled as he lost 6-2.

‘Quite an entrance!’ – Williams makes unique entrance to semi-final

Mark Williams is one of the quickest players on the snooker tour, and he took a shortcut during his walk-on ahead of his match with Barry Hawkins.

His average shot time of 18.78 thus far in the 2022/23 season is sixth quickest. Those ahead of him? Ronnie O'Sullivan, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, Zhao Xintong, Hossein Vafaei and Hammad Miah.

The Welsh Potting Machine seemed in a rush on Friday as he beat Zhou Yuelong and Jamie Jones 5-0 and 5-1 in the third round and the quarter-final respectively to set up a semi-final showdown on Saturday against Barry Hawkins.

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And the 47-year-old made a very Mark Williams entrance to that last-four encounter. The 2018 world champion elected not to do the full walk-on, and instead hopped the wall as Tom Jones’ ‘Delilah’ bellowed out in the background.

The scene prompted Phil Studd on commentary to note:

“Cracking atmosphere here at the Stadthalle,” began Studd.

“Mark Williams making quite the entrance there,” he chuckled.

Studd then turned to the potential of the match, adding:

“He has been playing some terrific stuff, as has Hawkins”

It was in fact Hawkins who would emerge victorious, overpowering Williams 6-2 to set up a final showdown with Kyren Wilson who had beaten Ali Carter 6-5 earlier in the day.

The Hawk has been in ferocious form this week, beating Judd Trump in the quarter-final and he produced what Alan McManus called the shot of the tournament in frame three.