Mark Williams will try contact lenses in a tournament for the first time at next week's Sportsbet.io Tour Championship in the hope of improving a problem with his eyesight which has plagued him this season.
The three-time World Champion defends the title at Manchester Central in the event which runs from March 31st to April 6th. Tickets are still available from just £25, for details click here.
Williams turned 50 during last week's Sportsbet.io Players Championship in Telford and despite beating Ding Junhui in the first round he said: "My eyes have completely gone. For the last six months, they have deteriorated quite badly. It was just long ones that were blurry, but now everything is blurry."
Since then he has experimented with glasses, but has now decided to give contact lenses a try. "I'm just taking it a few days at a time. I'm going to stick with these contacts now for the Tour Championship," said Williams, who will meet Ding again on Monday evening and Tuesday evening.
"I don't know how they're going to react with the lights, I'm hoping they won't be too much of a problem. If I'm playing ok with them then I'll keep them in for the World Championship and see where I go after there. The contacts are helping out at the minute. They hurt when they're in but I might just get used to them. It can't get any worse than the Players because I couldn't see much."
The Welshman has enjoyed some outstanding moments this season, notably winning the Champion of Champions in November and reaching the final of the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters in September. "When I get on a run I'm dangerous," said the world number five. "Even when I lost to Judd Trump in the final in Saudi, it was a great match and I was one red away from winning. It's definitely in there, but unfortunately it just doesn't come out as often as it used to."
If Williams can go all the way to the title next week, he would become the oldest ever ranking event winner, beating the record of Ray Reardon who was 50 years and 14 days when he won the 1982 Professional Players Championship. Last year in Manchester he narrowly edged out Tom Ford 10-9 with a phenomenal clearance in the deciding frame, then went on to beat Judd Trump, Mark Allen and Ronnie O'Sullivan.
"I should have gone out in the first round," he recalls. "Tom Ford was on 50-odd, missed an easy red and I came out with one of the best clearances I've ever made, I don't know where that came from. Then from that game on I pretty much destroyed everyone I played, I wish I could play like that all the time. It's in there now and again."
Only the top 12 players on the Johnstone's Paint One-Year Rankings will be in Manchester, including world number one Trump, Kyren Wilson, Mark Selby, John Higgins, Neil Robertson and Shaun Murphy. Click here for the match schedule.