Professional snooker player Shaun Murphy, who has amassed over $4 million in winnings, was so angry to lose to an amateur player in this year's UK Championship that he told the BBC:
"I am going to sound like a grumpy old man but that young man shouldn't be in the tournament, "It is not fair, it is not right. I feel extremely hard done by that I have lost to someone who shouldn't even be in the building."
"This is our livelihood. This is our living. We are self-employed individuals. It is wrong, in my opinion, to walk into somebody who is not playing with the same pressures and concerns I am.
"He played like a man who does not have a care in the world, because he does not have a care in the world."
The player Murphy feels is unfit for the building is Si Jiahui, a Chinese man who was once a pro but stopped competing professionally some years back. And Murphy isn't the only one who thinks the match was unfair. Snooker's reigning champion Neil Robertson doesn't want any "Chinese boys" at the tournament. From The Metro:
"I totally get where Shaun's coming from. When you're playing one of the Chinese boys, some of them are amateurs, but some are as good as anybody in the top 50 in the world.
"Amateurs are under a completely different pressure where there's actually no pressure, because they're not competing for ranking points.
"They're basically on a free hit at a pro, so I completely agree with what Shaun's saying there, because it is very dangerous."
Insider says, "Robertson went on to lose 6-2 in the first round on Tuesday to amateur John Astley."
