Was this snooker impossible to escape from? Neil Robertson puts Julien Leclercq in incredibly tough spot at UK Championship

“How on earth do you escape from this?” pondered Dominic Dale on commentary after Neil Robertson laid an incredibly testing snooker in his UK Championship match against Julien Leclercq. Such was the difficulty of the escape, Phil Yates asked whether it was an impossibility to find a way out. The Belgian Leclercq had two runs at it but failed in both. Watch the video below.

Neil Robertson engineered a snooker so demanding in his match against Julien Leclercq it left commentators Phil Yates and Dominic Dale flummoxed.  

Robertson laid the snooker as he closed in on a 6-2 first-round victory against his 22-year-old opponent at the UK Championship.

"He left himself with a tricky shot to play and he played it magnificently," said Dale after Robertson tied up Leclercq when leading 65-36.

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"Look at the snooker Julien Leclercq finds himself in here. How on earth do you escape from this?"  

It stumped fellow commentator Yates.  

Yates said: "Well, I am going to pose the question: is it an impossibility?"

Dale countered, insisting there was an escape.

"No, there is a shot on," said Dale. "You can come in behind the pink off the baulk cushion, but you would have to avoid cannoning off the green and the brown."

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Video credit: TNT Sports

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However, if there was, Leclercq could not find it. First, his two-cushion escape ended with the cue ball in the middle pocket.

With a miss called, the table was reset. However, with the Belgian now 33 behind and with 35 remaining, further misses would not be called. Attempt two saw the cue ball fly off the table and meet the carpet.   

With ball in hand, Robertson would lay another – less challenging – snooker but Leclercq would again fail to escape, and one glance at the scoreboard later, would concede.

The win marked a first for Robertson at the UK Championship since he won the event back in 2020. He will now face Wu Yize in the next round after he held off a Michael Holt fightback to prevail 6-4.

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