sjm, what are your thoughts on SVB winning another major(s)? He's still racking up prize money via deep finishes in basically every tournament he enters, but his wins seem to have dried up a bit since 2017 or so, which coincides with the rise of Filler, Gorst, Ouschan (although Ouschan nabbed a world title in 2016), and even Shaw to a degree. It will also be even tougher for him to win another one once the Taiwanese players are back in action in the major events.
You didn't address this to me but here is my take: SVB has shown us that he will be very hard pressed to win another major like this.
Skill-wise he is playing as good as ever. The competition has grown much stronger and is only getting stronger. What isn't the same is his desire and mindset.
This isn't taking a shot at him. SVB was the most dominant pool player in the world for about 10 years. That is an accomplishment shared by only a handful of people throughout history. There is no reason for SVB to feel anything but pride and satisfaction looking back on his career. But along with that satisfaction comes ice fishing and a little less fight.
This has played out the same for the last five years. SVB will get himself deep into events due to his overall great skill level, but come up a little short in the key moments. His opponents seem to want it more and be ready to make things go their way. I think of the two 2nd place finishes at the world championships, on top of the many other deep runs he's made in big tournaments only to have things go sideways at the end. As recently as 2016 things didn't go sideways for him, it was the opposite: When it looked like he had no road to victory he'd find a way. Now it looks like the stars would have to align because he isn't getting through these matches tournament after tournament.
This format was a great example. As long as it was a marathon, with a series of many races to 5, and no one set being all that defining, SVB was in good shape. He put his autopilot on, caught a gear, and was able to manage through the levels of pressure that came along. The moment is shifted to sudden death he fell way behind on score to Albin and proceeded to get eliminated. I know this is a super small sample size of one race to seven (that is why I wish I could've seen more pool here), but this just feels like how it's going to go. Compare that to Filler and Albin who both seem to be mentally where SVB was 10 years ago.
With SVB's skills he's certainly a threat to win if things go his way, and it's not impossible that he catches a second wind in his career. But with what we've seen right now he's shown that it is very unlikely that while he's going to always be around the last stretches of any major, he's an underdog to win the last handful of sets.
Again I feel the need to say this is no disrespect. None of us on these forums could do any better. We're talking about adversity beyond anything I've faced in my pool lifetime. Saying he isn't at his peak is really a compliment to his peak. SVB is among the greatest of all time and I'm honestly happy that he's in a spot where he's content in life and enjoying his time. He has brought so much inspiration to so many, he deserves some peace and joy.
