Jimmy Robertson has picked up some very impressive wins so far this season, but it was only a few months ago he was looking for part-time work as he felt an essential tremor was ruining his snooker career.
The 38-year-old narrowly lost to world champion Kyren Wilson in the last 16 of the Xi’an Grand Prix before gaining his revenge on the Warrior at the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters.
Robertson had already downed John Higgins before ousting Wilson to reach the quarter-finals of the new event in Riyadh.
It ended a little unceremoniously there, with a 6-0 loss to Mark Williams, but with some big scalps taken, £50,000 pocketed and confidence built after a tough time, it has been a great start to the season for him.
‘It was a really disappointing end to the week against Mark, but at the start if someone had said I’d get to the quarters, with where I’ve been over the last two years, I’d take that,’ Robertson told Metro.co.uk.
‘I want to go deeper. I’ve won a tournament before, I’d love to win another. I’ve been dealing with a few things off the table, so it’s been hard, but I’ve got a bit of confidence back. It was a good week.’
Robertson enjoyed a really good 2021-22 season but since then has been finding results hard to come by, largely thanks to a tremor in his arms that has become more significant over the last two years.
‘The best way I can explain it, when it’s at its worst, is like you’ve had a heavy night out and no sleep, you wake up and you’re all shaky, a bit achy,’ Robertson explained. ‘Or you’ve done a heavy weights session at the gym and your arms are gone. Playing snooker with shaky arms, wobbling all over, it’s horrible.
‘But that’s it at its worst. Clearly if I can sort my head out and I’m having an okay day I can still play the game, but it’s been tough.
‘I’ve just had no confidence while I’ve been really struggling with it. It’s torture going through it, all the emotions of going away from home, no confidence, losing, not earning any money. It’s not fun. I love playing in the tournaments, I still love what I do, but the emotions have been torture. I haven’t felt good for so long.’
The world number 38 says dealing with shaking is nothing new for him, having had a problem with it for most of his career, but things got better and then a lot worse over the last few years.
If he can keep his mind off the issue then the shaking is less troublesome, but that is easier said than done.
‘I’ve had the shakes for years,’ he said. ‘Maybe 15 years ago my arms used to shake and my head and neck used to shake. So I went to the doctors and they said it could be dystonia. It gradually went away but my arms never felt 100 per cent for many years.
‘Over the last three or four years my arms have really got out of control. It’s got worse to the point where it’s ruining my snooker career.
‘So I went to see a neurologist. It’s an essential tremor, I’ve been told it’s not going to get any better and you can’t get rid of it. It’s just something you’ve got, but it’s also not going to escalate into something more serious. It’s just a case of trying to manage it as best I can.
‘Naturally when I’m struggling all my brain thinks about is what’s going on with my arms and then it gets worse and worse. Sometimes you want the ground to swallow you up, it’s awful. But I’ve been more confident the last couple of tournaments and I don’t think about what’s going on with my arms and it’s not so much of an issue.
‘It is there every day, it’s always there. But I have days where it’s worse than others.’
The tremor was hampering Robertson so much last season that after a string of defeats in January he was left with no snooker ahead of him until World Championship qualifiers in April.
After struggling for months before that and prize money dwindling, he looked into picking up work away from the professional game.
‘I was having a stinking season,’ he said. ‘No income. Obviously I’ve got a missus, kids, a mortgage and everything to pay for. It’s tough. The bills don’t stop because I’m not winning matches.
‘So I had two months and needed to earn some money. I came home from the German Masters and went for a job interview with DPD. It got that bad.
‘It was the last thing I wanted to be doing but I wasn’t earning any money at snooker. I went for the interview, the money seemed alright, but they were long days. I had to be at the warehouse at 5am, which would have meant getting up at 3am and I thought, that ain’t for me! The intention was there, but straight away I thought again because I still had to practice. I didn’t even tell him I was a snooker player.’
Thankfully for Robertson he didn’t need the delivery job in the end as the lucrative market of Chinese 8-Ball pool saved the day.
‘An opportunity game up to play at the Heyball Grand Finals in March,’ he said. ‘I was on some money for going, everything was covered and I won a few matches out there and ended up picking up quite a few quid. It was as much in a week as I would have earned with DPD in three months!
‘I’m the only source of income at home so it’s a lot of pressure. There’s a lot of people in the same boat as me, I’m not crying with my story here, but it’s tough sometimes when you’re playing and feeling like you’ve got to win a game to pay the mortgage and the bills.’
Robertson used his time with no snooker wisely, deciding to capitalise on an extended period at home by cutting out the excesses of life on the road and getting stuck into a fitness regime.
‘I started grafting ahead of the World Championship,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t eating any junk, stopped having caffeine, alcohol, crisps, cakes, fizzy drinks and I was running six days a week. I started at 16st10lbs at the end of January and I’m currently at 13st12lbs.
‘I feel better in myself, feel better in my clothes, around the table, my game feels better, I’ve got more energy.’
Feeling in good shape and with the confidence and financial rewards of his recent runs in China and Saudi Arabia, Robertson is hoping that brighter times are ahead.
Outside of the nightmare situation with the tremor, he feels like a lack of confidence has held him back over his career, but now believes he is ready to conquer that problem.
‘I’m not saying I’m a world beater and I should be doing this and that, but I feel like I am a lot better than I’ve been doing over the last couple of years,’ he said. ‘I’m capable of doing something, I’ve just got to find that bit of confidence and belief and get on a run. Anything can happen when you have that.
‘I spent too many years putting people up there [on a pedestal], thinking how good are they. You go into a game and you’ve basically lost before you’ve played.
‘They’re just good snooker players. They’re normal people you can talk to. But the way my brain works, it’s cost me so many matches where you’re going into the game not really believing. I do believe. I’ve always believed I can win, but you get out there and you can freeze, it gets on top of you, thoughts come into your head and it’s difficult. The last 10-15 years have been difficult.
‘I’ve struggled with confidence and real belief over the years, but I am getting there now. I’ve been on the tour a long while now so I do feel experienced and like I’m managing it better.
‘It’s just a game of snooker. A snooker table, they’re all the same. And you are just playing human beings. You just worry about what you’re doing, get a chance and take it. It’s simple. But difficult.’
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