Snooker Best Shots Shanghai Masters 2025 Recreated

That's right the new snooker season is here already and the Shanghai Masters is already over which can only mean one thing we're here to work out who played the best shot and as usual we're going to be doing it by recreating all the shots as accurately as possible and then attempting to play them in the fewest possible attempts. So let's begin with the world champion as Zhaoxing Tong is 7 frames to 5 behind against Kyron Wilson in the semi-final and is looking to find his way back into the match and this is a great start. However Zhao wasn't able to capitalize on this chance and didn't make a high enough break to take the frame and ended up losing the match by 10 frames to 5 putting Kyron Wilson through to the final. As you can see I'm struggling with this shot because it feels to me like it's a lot straighter than it actually is and I've just got to accept it needs to be played a little bit thinner. The pot's in but it only counts if I get on the black it's a little bit short so let's see how well it scores. Definitely a tough start to the new season it might be getting tougher as Mark Selby's on a roll against Sean Murphy and he's powering in this blue around three cushions to give him great position on the pink so we can go on and complete the clearance. This is going to be a good test of the new cloth and we're going to see if it's fast enough to make it around all three cushions and get into position from what is a very straight blue. As you can see from the overhead shot I'm just not quite producing the goods when it comes to top spin. You need to get that top spin on the cue ball to make the that generates the speed to get it around the cushions. I'm starting to make it work here but unfortunately I'm just not getting enough top spin on the cue ball to make the angle. If you watch what the cue ball does when it gets close to the side cushion it should accelerate forward just a little bit. I'm starting to get this a bit better and this is close in fact I think I may have over hit it but I don't think I'm going to do much better than that. One bad shot now and Zangander could be out in the very first round but he manages to cope with that pressure knocking this green coolly down the cushion and screwing the cue ball back for the brown. He went on to make the clearance and then took the match in the very next frame. Even though I'm getting close and even fluking it I can tell I'm just striking the cue ball slightly too hard and not generating the back spin. It's gone in but I had to use a bit too much power. On to another close frame now as Ding requires both pink and black but he's got the wrong angle on the pink but he still manages to pot it and casually play the cue ball around the cushions leaving himself on the black and taking the frame. He'd eventually win this match by six frames to five against Zangander. Now my first attempt is an interesting one because clearly here I've over hit it but I believe with my old cloth I would have played it absolutely perfectly and I'm just not used to the possibility that I can actually over hit this shot so it's taking me a few shots to adapt to it and after working out I have to control the speed of the shot not just hit it full power I think I've got it right. Zhaogadong is in a difficult position against John Higgins already two nil behind and snookered he manages to pot the red off the cushion here he's a little bit unlucky with position but he does go on to take the frame which probably wouldn't have happened had he not have got the red he'd eventually go on to take the match by six frames to four as well so this shot would have made a big difference. I've got it with my third attempt although possibly a little thin although it's worth pointing out my first two attempts would have lost me the frame even though they were incredibly close. On to the Kyron Wilson section as this long red he powers down the cushion isn't the only great shot at the end of this break so we're going to be looking at more but for now we're just focusing on this because it's going to be a tough shot in itself. Now you may have noticed I've been able to add an extra camera angle which I believe looks okay but let me know what you think however this caused me a problem when I forgot to turn the main camera on before I started playing this shot and I actually got it within two attempts but unfortunately my main camera didn't record so I couldn't get the comparison at the end so I wanted to let you know this is a do-over but I got it quicker before. I'm guessing that I hit my red a little bit harder and that's why I've come around the back of the black however Kyron struck it but also has no problem striking the pink into the corner pocket and getting the white round two cushions between the gap between the yellow and brown and finishing in position. Other than the pot being tough this seems fairly straightforward in theory I've just got to hit it hard enough but as you can see here I've come back down the table at the wrong angle and haven't finished on the yellow and I believe this is because I haven't powered it in enough or produced enough top spin to throw the cue ball wider and I'm having a little bit of trouble doing it but I finally got the shot right and as you can see I've managed to throw the cue ball wider and get in position on the yellow but I had to learn that one a bit. Of course he's not done there playing another exhibition shot on the brown he pots this with screw and reverse side so when it hits the top cushion it goes to the left and ends up back off the side cushion on the blue this is going to be a great test for my new cloth and I can see if I can now play with a regular cue ball the sort of shot I would have no chance of getting before but I'm still going to have to cue this one really well. In the past the only way I could have played this shot is with a light cue ball but I can definitely get this with a regular white now no problem and I seem to have the speed but unfortunately when I put the right hand side on the cue ball to make it jump to the left with reverse side off the cushion it's taking a little bit of speed out so I'm going to have to cue this even better to get it right this shot appeared to have enough speed but it just slowed it down enough with a side spin as it struck the cushion so let's see if I can actually get into the cue ball a little bit more play it with screw and power and give it enough speed that I can get back up the table this isn't bad it's a little bit short of right hand side but that's about as good as I'm going to do and it's solely down to my cueing that I can't get it any better I'm not going to have to hit the next shot from Neil Robertson anywhere near as hard as the previous shots but it's still tough and it's a crucial shot in the middle of a break as Neil was able to go on from here and take the frame and eventually take the match by six frames to two so if he'd missed it it could have made a bit of difference in theory the fact that I'm right-handed should make this shot a bit easier for me but I've still had trouble with the first two attempts it looked like it was going in but it just rattled on the near jaw and the last shot did rattle on the near jaw but still went in on to Ronnie O'Sullivan now who's playing a double at the end of a clearance that allowed him to go on and complete it and force a re-spot unfortunately for Ronnie he'd lose that re-spot to Kyron Wilson and in the end the match by six frames to three ever since I've had the cloth replaced I seem to be struggling to judge the doubles correctly however I've got it here and the white seems to be coming down on the right line I'm on the black but let's see if I can finish off the black from this position yep everything's good up against that we got Zang Ander who's run out of position on a maximum break and is forced into playing this double to keep the break going he gets it position on the black and eventually the clearance making his fourth maximum although as we've already explained he eventually goes on to lose the match to Ding Zhengwei by six frames to five okay so my problem with judging these shots seems to be continuing although I am getting very close and have done so on a number of occasions I just can't quite find the pocket so I think I'm being a little bit unlucky here but I'll get there eventually the real question is which of these shots was the cheekiest double and it's time to cue the music because of the situation these shots are played in both of them get four and I think Ronnie would have probably won this had he have won the re-spotted black but as he hasn't Zang is this week's winner up next I've got Sijai Wei slow rolling the red into the middle pocket to give himself a chance in the frame he needs to defeat Kyron Wilson ultimately though he wasn't able to make a big enough break and Kyron took not only this frame but the next one as well to make his way through to the next round and I'm pretty happy with just two attempts there we've actually got another slow roll to the middle pocket this time from John Higgins on the other side of the table and this does look slightly harder is he having to bridge over the red and it looks like it's in an even thinner angle into the middle pocket but let's give it a go and see what we think even though I had to bridge over it wasn't too bad Judd Trump now with a shot that looks completely impossible and I'm not sure he played anything like this but we're going to have a go anyway as it looks like the white slid or skipped a long way with a lot of side spin to the right of the bolt cushion and I'm not sure even if I can get the cue ball as close to the yellow as Judd did if I'm going to be able to make that much of an angle and get past the green it doesn't look on but first I'm going to have to get close to the yellow I should point out here that I couldn't quite reach this shot right-handed so instead of playing it left-handed or using the rest I've mirror flipped the screen so I'm playing it right-handed but it's just on the other side of the table I'm getting to hit the green now but I can't really get much closer to the yellow than that this actually is heading towards the red but not around the outside of the green and I want to get as close to that yellow as I possibly can to find out whether or not the shot is possible but I've actually got on the red here about as well as Judd did so I'm going to speed things up and see if I can get incredibly close to the yellow and play the shot properly but for whatever reason nothing I am doing is getting any closer than I was before the best I can do is hit the green I just can't get around it I can't even get close to getting around it so I think something slightly unusual happened when Judd played this shot I've played this shot again but this is only as close as I got before and it's actually not as good as the previous one I played so I'm just going to take the previous shot and say it's impossible we've got an Ali Carter shot coming up right after we find Pedro Noncosta who's from Peniche Portugal which is there Ali Carter have been making impossible looking comebacks all week long and winning a lot of close matches this is another one he's already made it to five frames all against Algodon here and would finish it off in the decider he pushed Kyron Wilson then all the way in the final however he just couldn't quite do enough and ended up closely losing by 11 frames to nine Ali gets close to the in off on this one but it's fine because he still manages to pop the red down the cushion and as you can clearly see on my first attempt I haven't hit it anywhere near hard enough so let's see if we can correct that I'm actually quite close to the pocket here and I thought on the way down it might go in but this is looking okay but despite being in better position I still managed to miss the pot on the red it did look like Ali was about to make it 10 frames all and he tried to get Kyron in a snooker but the white just flicked the black leaving Kyron a slight chance Kyron was able to slow roll the red in pot the difficult brown and make the clearance to win the tournament I suppose this will be a good test of how straight my table is rolling now because if it rolls off a little bit it's just going to make this shot harder that's rattled but it's dropped in let's see if I can get the brown afterwards as well well that's pretty good well that's the first tournament of the season nearly sorted but we still have to work out which of those shots was the best and you can vote for that for free using the link in the description and if you want to compare it to shots from previous tournaments then have a look at these two videos and remember don't 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