It was 2002 and a 20-year-old Australian snooker player was sat in Leicester feeling homesick. The East Midlands city felt completely different from his home town of Melbourne. Neil Robertson would have to walk to an internet cafe if he wanted to get in contact with his family.
Questioning whether he had made the right decision to uproot his life to play professional snooker, he began watching football. There had been little coverage of football in Australia where Victoria Beckham was a far bigger celebrity than her husband.
There was one moment in particular that hooked him. Chelsea were playing Norwich City at Stamford Bridge after a 0-0 draw at Carrow Road. With the home side 2-0 up, Graeme Le Saux launched a corner to the front post. The onrushing Gianfranco Zola acrobatically flicked the ball into the net with his right foot.
“It was the first bit of skill I could really appreciate,” says Robertson, speaking ahead of the 2026 Masters which begins on Sunday. “You can’t go for Manchester United or Arsenal because it’s jumping on the bandwagon. I ran with Chelsea.”
One glance at Robertson’s account on X is enough to see just how hooked he got. He is opinionated and not afraid to speak his mind. Sometimes that gets him into trouble. When he tweeted about the Lord’s Test during the last Ashes tour in England, he lost a few thousand followers overnight. He has learned to be more careful what he posts on social media as an Australian living in England.
Robertson pins his love of sport on growing up in Australia. He became hooked on snooker as an 11-year-old, learning to play at his dad’s pool club in Melbourne.
“My brother and I used to play once every few weeks at the club, then it was every weekend, then it was a little bit after school, then it was during school. I was around 15 and had almost given up on school.”
He was soon regularly taking part in tournaments and rose up the rankings. He won the World Championship in 2010, before winning the Masters in 2012 and the UK Championship in 2013 to become the first non-UK player to complete the Triple Crown. Astonishingly, almost 13 years later that remains the case.
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“It shows how hard it is to win as an overseas player,” says Robertson. “Zhao Xintong has got two of the three legs out of the way. Everyone thought Ding Junhui would have won a World Championship by now. If the World Championship moved around to different countries, myself and Ding would have won multiple.
“Having that home support makes a big difference. If I was to play the World Championship in Australia every year, it would be a completely different scenario. But it is what it is. That’s part of the challenge.”
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If there is to be another non-UK player to manage the feat, it is highly likely that they will come from China. There are a record five Chinese participants this year, with the tournament featuring the top 16 players. Since Ding won the UK Championship in 2005, the sport has taken off there.
“The support China has given the sport is incredible really. You have all these events and prize money to play for, and when we go to China we get treated so well. I expect more Chinese players to get on the tour and to keep getting big enough to keep their place.
“Where my worry is: are the players coming through from the UK? For the sport to really thrive, you need players from the UK to be doing well because they are such good characters. You can’t just have one country be dominant on the tour. You need that international feel and mix.”
After 17 years of winning an event every year, Robertson hit a wall in 2023 when he failed to claim a title. “It was such a shock because of the level of consistency I had produced.”
Robertson responded by re-evaluating his set-up. Having spent almost two decades working by himself, he hired a sports psychologist and began working with Joe Perry, who was a Masters finalist in 2017. He cites Perry as particularly important in last year’s win in a tense final over Ronnie O’Sullivan at the Saudi Arabia Masters. The pair were due to face off in the Masters opening round, but O’Sullivan has withdrawn for medical reasons, leaving Robertson to play Chris Wakelin instead.
“Ronnie was the first player to start working with a sports psychologist back in 2012. You saw a big change in Ronnie then. He’s always been the one who has delved into these things first. More players have a team behind them now than don’t.
“Sports people are always in the public eye. We’re human beings like everyone else. We can have problems at home. It’s not necessarily anything terrible going on but sometimes there are certain things in life that throw up certain obstacles.
“I’ve got a young family, and with kids, that complicates things. You’re travelling a lot, living out a suitcase. You miss certain events with your kids. It’s pretty tough.
“Snooker is a sport where you don’t know how long you can actually play it for at the highest level. Usually sports people retire in their early to mid-30s, and they can do all of that stuff. I’m 43 now and I’m better than ever so how long can I go on for?”
Robertson has always been an open book on how his family life interacts with his sporting life. He has spoken in the past about his wife Mille’s experiences with anxiety, depression and sobriety. He is not alone in that in the snooker world. Kyren Wilson, the 2024 world champion, has discussed how his wife’s health issues have impacted his play.
“I think everyone has always appreciated that I’ve been honest in interviews,” says Robertson.
“One thing I can’t stand in sport is to see a rehearsed interview from a player. Sometimes there are things where it’s best to keep it to yourself but in general, I think it’s really healthy if sportspeople can be really honest about what they think about.”
Photograph by Tai Chengzhe/VCG via Getty Images