SNOOKER star David Gilbert has labelled the sport “boring” and suggested two ways of making it more interesting.
The Englishman, 43, reached the semi-final of the world championships this year before losing to eventual winner Kyren Wilson.
Yet despite finding some of the best form of his career, the world No21 has still taken aim at snooker‘s format.
One suggestion The Farmer has for making it a more attractive sport is to shorten the number of frames required to win matches.
Speaking on the Talking Snooker podcast, he said: “I think best of 11 is the bang on format for any match. I don’t think we need to play any more than that. I like the short formats because snooker’s boring!
“You can’t change the world championship, never, but I’d change the qualifying back to best of 11. No one needs to play best of 19, I prefer it as a best of 11.
‘I can’t believe that some of these people want to play best of 19s. The world championship [qualifying] changed to best of 11, there was a lot of screaming and moaning but for me it was far better.
“I wouldn’t want to be a ref for hardly any of them matches of best of 19, I feel sorry for them.”
Gilbert also criticised the “miss rule” which sees players penalised for failing to hit a ball.
He feels this is an outdated punishment as players are now willing to miss in order to ensure they make the perfect shot.
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Instead, he wants a missed shot to result in the opposition player receiving the ball in hand.
Gilbert added: “The miss rule is the worst rule I’ve ever seen! When there’s 14 reds on the table and you’re playing someone like Mark Selby, an incredible player, if you say, ‘Mark, here’s £10,000 to hit a red,’ then he’ll hit a red.
“Snookering somebody now is almost pointless because they’re basically trying to miss the ball for three or four goes. A foul is not enough to try and encourage somebody to hit the balls.
“They’re trying to get the thin edge, flick it safe. I do it, I get it, you use the rule to your advantage, but there’s no point to a snooker anymore.
“It takes forever to put the balls back, it slows the game up. If you just made it foul, ball-in-hand, bang, people will hit the ball.
“And if they don’t then the geezer who played a good shot to get a snooker has a reward. The amount of times there is zero reward…
“I hate the miss rule, so I’d definitely change that.”
