Zak Surety enjoyed his best season as a professional last time around, but his snooker career is still not coming easy to him as he continues to battle anxiety.
The 32-year-old dropped off tour in 2022, bounced straight back on at Q School but struggled in the 22-23 season, winning just six matches and leaving himself a lot to do to retain his pro status.
The Essex man then had a vastly improved campaign, picking up 15 victories and finishing top of the one-year list outside the world’s top 64, keeping his place on tour for another two years.
He has started this season steadily enough, winning his qualifiers to make it to the Xi’an Grand Prix and Wuhan Open but despite results coming far more regularly, an old problem still haunts him.
On coming through Q School in ’22, Surety spoke out about anxiety issues that have dogged his snooker career, and while they have eased over the last two years, they are still hampering his progress.
‘It’s improved but it’s still there,’ Surety told Metro. ‘I wouldn’t say I’m right on top of it. Every match I go into is still like a proper ordeal.
‘On match day, in a way, it’s like closing your eyes and hoping for the best. Sometimes I’ve come out with some good results, but I’m never happy with how I play, I still don’t think I’ve played well.
‘I had a bit of a wobble again recently in the British [Open], quite a bad one to be honest. I let myself down a little bit because of how I was feeling.’
Surety explains that when anxiety starts to creep in ahead of a game it can make performing almost impossible and it can be brought on simply by travelling away from home.
‘I’ve never been that good at going away,’ he said. ‘It’s the worst thing to say as a snooker player with all the travelling around we do.
‘The British match in Leicester against Ben Mertens, it’s only two hours away, but I tried to do the right thing, I went up the day before but I just didn’t feel right. All day I didn’t feel good. I was all shaky, I couldn’t breath.
‘I had about 15 chances to go 1-1, he was struggling a bit as well, but it all got on top of me. I was shaking, sweating, just one of them days where a 15 break is an achievement. It’s embarrassing really, but once you go, you go.’
Surety has tried ways of dealing with the anxiety attacks when they strike, and a chat with a snooker legend has been helpful.
‘Them wobbles don’t happen that often, they’ve gone down a bit, but they are hard to stop. Last summer I did a course of CBT [Cognitive behavioural therapy]. Everyone at the club wants to get me hypnotised and that sort of stuff.
‘Last year I had a meeting with Steve Davis, we went and met him in a coffee shop and picked his brains for a couple of hours. He was great. He gave me a few little tips on how he dealt with things, not when he was at the top, but when he was coming off it.
‘He told me about some breathing techniques, books to read and just things to do in your head. There was a lot of times last season it was working, but sometimes your head just goes a little bit too far, you can’t hear Steve anymore, you hear other things.
‘I love being a snooker player, but every time a draw comes out I’m thinking, “I hope this doesn’t happen again.” I try not to be all doom and gloom about it, but it does hold me back.
‘It can be little things, like going to China. I get myself in such a state about travelling. It’s bad because if you’re going to progress in the game you have to be doing it, jumping on planes every week. I’ve qualified for Xi’an and Wuhan and I was getting myself so worked up about it. Going to Yushan last season I enjoyed it in the end, but I get myself at it in the build up. It affects my sleep, my eating, everything goes a bit funny.’
It certainly isn’t all doom and gloom for Surety, things have improved for him and he largely credits his move to JP’s Snooker and Pool Club in Harlow two years ago.
He had been mostly practicing at home before that, but a move to a more structured routine and with the support of the club run by former player Jason Pegram has really helped.
‘My life’s a lot better with going to the club,’ he said. ‘The results are better, not as good as I’d like them to be, but better.
‘I’m very well looked after down there and I feel like I enjoy playing snooker every day. That wasn’t the case before, I was stuck at home, got a bit stale and didn’t really know what I was doing.
‘Jason the manager looks after me really well, he’s very well connected, we’ve had Ali Carter down here, Joe Perry comes down a lot, I’ve always practiced with Stuart [Bingham], Neil Robertson has been one of my main practice partners recently. I’d never have had that when I was just at home. I still don’t feel like I’m playing how I want to be playing, but I’m doing the right things.’
Practicing with the elite is obviously a great opportunity, but Surety admits it is a test mentally to keep coming back from his sessions with Robertson. However, it is a test he is enjoying and glad for.
‘He’s unbelievable,’ Surety said of Robertson in practice. ‘It’s great to practice with him, I’ve gone up to him a few times, but when I leave his club in Cambridge and I’m driving back down the M11, I’m questioning why I even play the game. He makes me feel like a six year old!
‘He makes the game look so easy. He’s at a level where he makes the occasional mistake then I’ve got this red that I should pot 12 times out of 10 but then you stand over it and can’t even see it. He’s completely done me.
‘It’s really helped me stay on tour though. It’s silly little safety shots that don’t look like much and I wonder, how’s he got me in so much trouble here? But I’ve taken that into my own game. I’ve picked up things. It’s nothing flash. It looks like nothing, but he’ll open the reds and leave me nothing but a one out of 10 shot and if I miss he’ll make a 140!’
Surety will hope to put these tricks of the trade into practice at the Xi’an Grand Prix, where he takes on Hammad Miah on Monday in the second round.
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