It’s a great sight to see Ricky Walden winning snooker matches again.
Life on the baize can be a bit dark and depressing when you’re stuck in a rut. Contending with a back injury in recent months has seen Walden slump to a worrying level of performance. At times, he’s looked like he could genuinely lose to anyone.
In almost an instant he’s gone from one of the world’s most established stars in the sport’s elite bracket to a player who looks desperately out of touch and a million miles from his best form.
His performance so far at the Indian Open this week, where he has progressed through to the last 16, will, without doubt, have restored some of his confidence and suggests that he could be pulling through the worst of his injury problems.
What will please Walden most here is that his wins have come against players renowned for a solid all-round game. Alfie Burden and Ben Woollaston are the kind of players that will most definitely take advantage of players who are even the slightest off their game. They are the kind of players you simply have to play well to beat.
Walden is another of these players who is wildly under-rated when he’s playing well. This is probably because he’s so understated when he plays the game. He keeps things simple, does all the right things and isn’t overly flash.
It speaks volumes about how good he is of a player when you look at his record. He’s beaten almost all the top players at some point in his career and has enjoyed a great longevity among the top of the rankings.
It also says a lot about him as a sportsman that even despite his problems finding comfort on shots, he has continued to enter a fair share of events and has been patient in waiting for his form to click back into place.
This week’s Indian Open is certainly proving to be as open as was predicted. There’s a small part of me that thinks it could be a bridge too far for Walden to lift the title, but his name is still in the hat and his lean months just gone might just provide that extra added incentive.
