Christian spikes on the 'Richter' scale

Bengaluru: It’s a travesty that the forcefully quiet confines of a snooker club don’t allow for players to celebrate their victories with gusto or allow for a vocal expression when confronted by a loss.

In this prevailing atmosphere, Christian Richter missed a straightforward cut of the pink ball to the top left corner, but even before the ball wobbled out, Thailand’s Lomnaw Issarangkun walked over and shook hands with the German.

Richter had done enough by then to claim the IBSF Boys’ Under-17 Snooker crown with a 78 (44)-20, 71 (67)-22, 14-78, 68-16, 82-21 win at the KSBA hall on Tuesday.

Once victorious, Richter went on to pack up his cue stick in a dull-black cue case as if he hadn't won a title, only offering an awkward smile to the small crowd which corralled around him with whispers of ‘well played!’.

Richter did play well enough to bag his first international title, but he will be the first to admit that had Issarangkun shown some of the spunk he has in the games leading up to the final, the final scoreline wouldn’t have worn such a one-sided look.

More than spunk actually, it was Issarangkun’s inability to capitalise on Richter’s erroneous ways - even if sporadic - that cost him time on the table.

Had Issarangkun played the safety with more precision, Richter was likely to foul, especially on the long pots, but Issarangkun was far too concerned about the scoreline on the digital scoreboard instead of plotting his way to snook the German more often.

That said, Richter was good enough to pull himself out of troublesome situations when they did come up. That in and of itself was a good sign for his future, but the youngster’s ability to place the cue ball where he wants with metronomic accuracy is the real takeaway.

Sure, he was guilty of missing easy pockets from not-so-acute angles sporadically, but with Issarangkun not in a mood to build on those errors, Richter kept getting away with it. Perhaps as often as he did with missing out on several long pots from the top of the table.

The two-time German Junior National champion has enough skill to get the crowd clicking fingers often, some of his black-ball cuts were shots to behold. But as he lines up for the World Men’s Under-21 Snooker Championship in the days to come, he will know that the margin for errors will get slimmer and slimmer as the draw gets leaner and leaner.