Jack Lisowski and Michael Smith

Jack Lisowski hopes to become the 'Michael Smith of snooker' as he seeks to finally win his first title at the World Snooker Championship

By Chris Hammer

Snooker

Mon April 17, 2023 · 3y ago

Jack Lisowski is hoping to become the ‘Michael Smith of snooker’ as he bids to finally end his long wait for a first title.

Much has been made of the 31-year-old’s immense potential throughout his career but since 2018 he’s finished runner-up in seven tournaments – six of which were ranking – while this season he’s reached three semi-finals, including the UK Championship and the Masters.

Every fellow professional, pundit and snooker fan are seemingly all in agreement that when he finds the mental strength to complement his talent and win his first then the floodgates will open to greater riches.

However much this kind of pep talk is flattering about his abilities, Lisowski finds it all as tiresome as the current darts world champion did during a similarly lengthy wait to fulfil his promise.

Smith, who first burst onto the scene when knocking Phil Taylor out of the 2014 World Championship, lost his first eight major finals between 2018 and 2022, including two on the biggest stage of final.

Everyone involved in darts kept telling him if he kept knocking hard enough, the door would finally be blown off its hinges and as it turned out, they were right.

Success at November’s Grand Slam of Darts at the age of 32 broke his duck and just over a month later he defeated Michael van Gerwen in spectacular circumstances to become world champion and the world number one.

Fantastic to see Michael Smith finally get the major his career richly deserved!

Great scenes between him and Nathan Aspinall at the end 👏pic.twitter.com/7smxkWjz8R
— Chris Hammer (@ChrisHammer180) November 20, 2022

THE BEST LEG IN DARTS HISTORY! 🤯🤯🤯

MVG MISS DOUBLE 12 FOR A NINE DARTER BUT MICHAEL SMITH MAKES IT! UNREAL SCENES 🤯pic.twitter.com/IDYxujSqHx
— Chris Hammer (@ChrisHammer180) January 3, 2023

This sequence of events was not lost on Lisowski, who begins his quest for Crucible glory on Tuesday.

He said: “I suppose it’s nice that people rate me so highly but it’s annoying because I still haven’t won a title yet.

“I’m hoping I can do what Michael Smith has done in darts. I had people come up to me before he made his breakthrough and saying how similar our careers had been, so it’s funny to see him win a big title then go on to become world champion so quickly after.

“Hopefully I’ll be the Michael Smith of snooker!”

To do that he’ll first need to get past Noppon Saengkham in round one before a potential meeting with his great friend Judd Trump, who opens his campaign against Anthony McGill.

Lisowski said: “I called him up as soon as I saw the draw and said I’d got some bad news! It’s really annoying but I guess it’s inevitable we’ll have to meet in this tournament one day – although we both have tough first-round matches to make that happen.

“We’ve been playing each other since we were about nine years old so we are used to it and there will be no hard feelings whatever happens.”