Neil Robertson has hit out at ‘clueless opinions’ regarding a debate sparked by fellow potter Judd Trump. Robertson has enjoyed somewhat of a resurgence in recent years, and currently ranks fourth in the WST standings. However, Trump raised eyebrows during an interview when he suggested the Aussie was only that high because of his Saudi Arabia Masters win. The triumph at the Middle East event was worth £500,000, with suggestions it was doing some heavy lifting as far as Robertson’s ranking position was concerned. But the 2010 world champion has rubbished such a claim.
Speaking to the Metro, Robertson remarked: “I spoke to Judd and said, ‘What are you doing?’ He was just like, ‘Oh God, that just came out all wrong.’
“Before winning Saudi I was still ranked eight. It’s not like I just won Saudi. You only have to look at the actual points, take Saudi off and I’m still really high up anyway.
“When I won Saudi, that was my third ranking event win in the space of 10-11 months and since Saudi, it’s been littered with quarters and semi-finals.”
It originally stemmed from Trump saying: “I think Neil, for example, I don’t really know what he’s done to be so close, apart from win Saudi, he hasn’t really done anything else.
“It’s hard to pick individual players out, nothing against Neil but he’s not been consistent enough to be the number one, in my eyes.”
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Meanwhile, on the online speculation, he added: “I don’t really take too much notice. I used to a few years ago, but I see certain topics being discussed…I don’t know, say Hendry or Ronnie or Messi or Ronaldo, the Jordan-Lebron debate or Tom Brady and all that.
“You see some of the comments and people have got no idea. It’s actually a big relief to see that because it’s other sports where this exists too, where you just get completely clueless opinions from people that have absolutely no idea.
“I’m completely immune to it all now. People are going to have their opinions. That’s just sort of how it goes, you know?”
Adding: “It happens a lot around golf,’ he said. ‘I’ll be at the driving range and I could be talking to a complete stranger for 10 minutes and they’re like, ‘Wow, you’re actually really nice person. Whenever I’ve seen you on TV, I thought you were arrogant!’
“People are judging a personality based on when you’re in a really competitive environment. We’re just normal people. I think you get judged too much on how you are in the arena. If you were to judge every heavyweight boxer on how they are in the ring, you probably wouldn’t like too many of them.”