10:34am Monday 8th March 2010
By Dick Marshall
BASILDON professional Stuart Bingham admits that, in the week leading up to tomorrow’s final qualifying round match in the World Championship, the excitement has been costing him sleep.
Bingham takes on Stuart Pettman in a best of 19 frames clash at Sheffield’s English Institute of Sport.
The match will be played in two sessions, the first starting at the unlikely snooker hour of 10am, with the winner going through to next month’s main event at the sport’s legendary Crucible Theatre home.
“There’s a lot of tournaments during a season, but nothing begins to compare with the World Championship,” said Bingham, 34, who will be bidding for his fifth World Championship appearance.
“I’ve noticed this week that I’ve been waking up earlier than usual, before the alarm clock goes off, due to the World Championship qualifiers being on my mind.
“I’ve only failed to get through to the main stages of one ranking tournament this season — the forthcoming China Open — and it’s generally been a pretty good year for me.
“But if I win through to the Crucible it will be a very good year. If I don’t it will be a nothing year.”
Failure to get through to the main stages of the World Championship will leave Bingham perilously close to dropping out of the sport’s top 32.
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