Snooker icon Tony Drago is back on the baize on Sunday at the Seniors 900 and can’t wait for his blockbuster clashes with old friends and rivals Jimmy White and Stephen Hendry.
It’s a great line-up in Hull this weekend, with Ken Doherty, World Seniors champion Igor Figueiredo and Barry Pinches in the other group for the fast-paced tournament.
Drago is relishing the chance to face his good pal White once again, while he would love to score a win over Hendry and give the Scot something else to linger in his memory.
‘It is always special to play Jimmy, we speak quite a bit. Maybe sometimes we can go a month without speaking but then speak twice in a week, it depends,’ Drago told Metro.co.uk.
‘The record is not great with Stephen. I think we played 18 times and I think I lost the first 12, then I won three, then he won three, it’s something like 15-3.
‘So the record is not good. But I never forget that I beat him three times in two months. He never forgets it either because he keeps bringing it up!’
The 58-year-old’s memory is bang on, with their head-to-head record at 15-3 in the Scot’s favour, but the Tornado’s hat-trick of wins coming in the German Masters, Irish Open and Masters in the 1998-99 season.
Drago had a crack at the amateur version of The 900 in 2022 and is excited to have another go in the Seniors after watching Hendry triumph in Epsom in December and Doherty win the event at Goffs earlier this year.
The Tornado is a fan of the format, but despite his pace around the table, has never been enamoured with the Shoot Out on the professional circuit.
‘I played in the amateur 900, but this is the first 900 Seniors. It was great fun, I enjoyed it,’ he said.
‘The Shoot Out, people think because I play fast I’d like that but I don’t like it, no. When I play snooker I want to be able to concentrate, not all that noise and shouting and screaming.
‘I never liked the Shoot Out and I think the worst thing that ever happened was making that a ranking event. Please, for God’s sake, don’t do it as a ranking event!’
Drago may not be a Shoot Out fan but he is still a very keen fan of snooker, watching the Saudi Arabia Masters unfold in Riyadh in recent days and he expects the game to continue to shift in that direction.
‘I think they’ll be playing a World Championship with £1m first prize in Saudi Arabia in the next few years,’ he said. ‘I don’t like to see it because I love the Crucible, but then again I don’t blame the players.
‘It will be very sad. There’s some players who don’t need the money, Mark Williams, John Higgins, Ronnie O’Sullivan, they’ve got all the money in the world, but if they’ve only got another three or four years playing, why not play for a million quid first prize? I don’t blame them at all. But for me as a player and now a fan, I don’t like to see it leave the Crucible.
‘Having said that, the Crucible is a great venue but it is a bit too small. If there’s 900 watching, there’s 1800 left out. You have to look at it both ways. The home of snooker, yes, I love to see it in Sheffield. But the World Championship deserves to be played in front of 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 people.
‘But don’t you worry, it won’t be a good atmosphere there. You’ll probably see someone on a maximum and two or three guys will stand up in front of him on the phone. These people have so much money, they’re not going to show respect to snooker players. If they want to call their wife to say they’re going to be late for dinner they will do it. You can be on a 140 break, they’ll stand up on their phone in front of the pocket. I’ve played nine-ball pool in Qatar, it was like that.’
The much-loved Maltese worried fans at this year’s World Seniors Championship, revealing struggles with mental health, but says those problems are now firmly in the past.
‘That’s behind me now,’ he said. ‘That’s all good.’
With semi-final runs at the last two World Seniors Championships, the Tornado is still very capable of blowing away the competition, even if the days of hard practice and travelling the world for competition are done with.
‘I don’t play at all these days, but when something comes up I just pick up the cue for a week or 10 days for an hour or two a day,’ he said.
‘Travelling far away, that life is finished for me, no more. I did it for over 30 years, I’ll be 59 in two week’s time, I’m not getting any younger. Jimmy still does it, but not for me. Flying to Europe for two or three days, that’s ok, but that’s about it.
‘I’m looking forward to this weekend, though. I was supposed to play in Hull a few times but couldn’t because of Covid, so I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a great line-up.’
The Seniors 900 gets underway at 1pm on Sunday 8 September, live on Channel 5.
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