Humble Mark Williams 'playing better than he ever has' as he eyes latest Crucible crown at World Championship

You can guarantee that the one person not getting carried away by Mark Williams’s ferociously brilliant display so far in the World Championship is the man himself. Williams has destroyed his first two opponents for the loss of only six frames: Michael White 10-3 and Jackson Page 13-3 with a session to spare. On his way to the quarter-finals, the three times Crucible champion has compiled ten centuries.

Ad/> By anyone’s standards, this is impressive stuff. Williams, though, will take it in his stride. Laid back, laconic and unflappable, he is the master of remaining calm and puncturing hyperbole.

Unusually, he is a good loser. Or rather, he wants to win but winning isn’t everything. It doesn’t define his character and therefore his state of mind.

World ChampionshipWorld Championship LIVE — Higgins, Bingham and Wilson first before Trump and RobertsonAN HOUR AGO However, if the Welshman carries on like this then he could at 47 years of age end up the oldest Crucible champion a week from now. His next test is a last eight-meeting with the stubborn and resilient Yan Bingtao, a player 25 years his junior, who outlasted Mark Selby in an epic on Saturday night. Williams has said more than once that he doesn’t deserve to be bracketed with Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins, but this is like George Harrison asking not to be put on the same level as Lennon and McCartney.

At the end of the day, he was still a Beatle and Williams will forever be celebrated as part of snooker’s Class of ’92. Purely on titles won, he is the junior member of this hallowed pantheon. O’Sullivan has 38 ranking titles to his name, Higgins 31 and Williams 24, but for a time around the turn of the millennium he was the senior man of the three.