Neil Robertson insisted in the press conference following his first-round 10-2 win over Jamie Jones that he was for the first time in his career “regularly leaving the club after Joe Perry and practising as hard as I ever have for the World Championship”.
Perry, who also uses Cambridge as a training base, is usually only too ready to poke some fun at his friend and rival, and dismiss some of the Australian’s wilder claims – but he admitted in the corridor that on this occasion it was all true, and the 2010 champion had been focus and dedication personified ahead of the tournament after an early exit in Beijing.