My take on all the happenings at the WPC - First and foremost like all of you on here I'm thrilled to see Shane win! It's been a long time coming and a very long grind for him, and many people believed that his time had passed. My opinion is this just may be a new beginning for him, with more major titles yet to come.
Cleaning up an earlier comment of mine about the ball colors, the four and five balls both are different colors than what we're used to, but thanks to good camera work and the vivid colors of pink and purple, we can easily see which ball is which.
The table played good, but the corners were definitely more forgiving than a Diamond. So be it. The same for both players. I like the ref. He stayed out of the players way and let them play the match. Excellent commentary by JJ, Kelly and Karl. The English guy Mike did a good job of adding background info and was smart enough to let the experts analyze the play.
This was a made-for-TV tournament with only a small live audience. Where is Milton Keynes anyway? Notice that now that Matchroom has a grip on almost all the major tournaments they are almost all being played in Europe. Now the Americans have to fly over there to play as opposed to how it used to be when the Europeans were all flying here for the major events. Maybe it's a good thing for American pool, a wake up call of sorts.
Shane went from 6-5 down to 12-6 ahead without Albin coming to the table. But to achieve this run he had to make some excellent shots, control his break and run out several racks under pressure. Look again at Shane's kick off the end rail where he made the one ball and started his run. Watch how the cue ball swerves coming off the end rail. That is a very tough shot to gauge and even hit the one ball! Even in the final game where Albin had a couple of chances, Shane's good safety play won the advantage, and subsequently the match!
At 11-6, on a tricky five ball, Shane goes back and forth across the table and bumps the seven perfectly to land just right on the six. At that moment Shane knew the Pool God's were finally shining on him. You could see it in his face. The rest was a formality from there. Once again a big salute to our first American World Champion since Earl Strickland in 2002.
