World Snooker Championship 2022 Review: History, perfection and the GOAT

The 2022 World Snooker Championship came to an end on Monday night with Ronnie O’Sullivan lifting the famous old trophy for a seventh time.

It brought to a close 17 days of action at the Crucible, which itself followed 10 days of tension at the qualifiers in Sheffield.

The Class of 92 all shone as they made up three of the four semi-finalists, there was a big victory for a young debutant and an immense maximum from the tournament favourite.

The Rocket’s triumph secured himself another slice of snooker history as he equals Stephen Hendry’s world title haul, while he helped break the record for tournament tons as well.

But just how good was this World Championship? It felt like a good one, but was it a great one?

There is always drama at the Crucible, but it actually felt like we were not awash with it this year. O’Sullivan’s run to the title was about as serene as you will see as he swatted away the competition. The 18-13 defeat of Judd Trump in the final and 10-5 win over Dave Gilbert in round one were as close as his games got.

We didn’t get a single decider in the first round, which gave the tournament a little bit of a slow burn vibe early on.

Of course the drama did arrive and there were some agonisingly tense moments. Yan Bingtao’s second round win over Mark Selby was superb, and on one glorious night we were treated to Trump’s epic win over Anthony McGill and Jack Lisowski’s stunning effort to beat Neil Robertson in a deciding frame.

Lisowski was in the heat of battle again in the quarters, losing the final two frames to John Higgins to be beaten 13-12, while Trump came through an amazing match in the semis to beat Mark Williams 17-16.

Those matches were some of the best you could hope to see, but it was still not the most