English.

As I arrived at my Mums yesterday, my brother William said to me, “The finals of the snooker is about to start at 7pm, Mum and I have been watching it over the weekend, I want the young lad to win it.” He put the telly over onto the right channel, so that it would be ready for when it started. He went on to say, “The young lad only needs one more frame to win, then he has done 18 frames, the other man is on the 9th frame.”

William had got me interested enough and I settled down to watch history in the making, for should he will, he would be the first ever from the whole of Asia to win this trophy here in England.

I had not heard of either player. The last time I had watched and enjoyed snooker was when my favourite player of all time was playing and that was the great Steve Davis, after he went out, I lost interest. When the snooker is on, I put it on for Mum, as she still enjoys it.

The score at the start of the finals was yesterday, Bank Holiday was 17 frames to 9.

The man who is 50 years old, and very experienced had nothing to lose, then the score was 17 frames to 10 and then 17 frames to 11.

Stranger things have happened; the older man even had a fluke! Could he, would he make the come back of all come back and win it? All that hype, it really would be amazing, for at 50 years old, this might be he last chance to win it, but the lad could always come back next year and win it then.

I like my William, really wanted the young lad to win. William who hasn’t got a telly, I texted him the scores as they happened. When it had got to 17 frames to 11 William said, “Gosh, I wonder what had happened to the lad?” I replied, “I don’t know.” Maybe he had got over confident, and the man with the more experience, came into his own, and because he had nothing to lose, played for his life! Then it went up to 17 frames to 12! It didn’t look good for the young player, could the older man win? Thankfully then they went for a long break.

On their return to the table, the older man was doing well again, and then he missed the shot, and put his head down on the table, in defeat? Did he know, now that it was all over?

It was with great relief that the young lad Zhao age just 28 won it for all of Asia! I was really pleased for him. Someone gave him a Chinese flag and he lifted it up high and then put it around his shoulders.

I was looking forward to hear him speak. I have been trying to learn Italian, over the years and had done well at night college age 20 years and on my phone free app called Duolingo but had fallen behind by not practising every day. And I realized I can’t speak in a sentence but know just the individual words, about 50 of them.

Zhao was asked questions, his English was basic, but amazing that he, in England with all the world watching including China, was able to understand the questions and reply! I did think, why didn’t he get an Interpreter? But that would be very expensive, But I thought England could have provided an Interpreter for him? That way he would have been able to answer the questions fully. But there was a sweet innocence, in his replies. He thanked his sponsors and those in the room and other supporters, his parents were not there, they had never flown. And with the crowd cheering, it was amazing he was able to hear the questions.

You just can’t tell, by looking at a person, what their accent or level of English is going to be like, until they open their mouth and speak.

I was very proud of him, for I could not have said all of that in Italian, nor would I have been able to understand the questions. If I was in China, I would need an Interpreter 100% I don’t know one word of Chinese, if sushi is Chinese, then that is the only Chinese word I know.

Well done Zhao Xintong.