AARON HILL LIVES in Liverpool now so he knows the significance of trending ahead of Jurgen Klopp.
But such is the power of beating Ronnie O’Sullivan.
Hill won the European U21 snooker championship in March last year and earned himself a guaranteed two years on the professional circuit, and met among his early events was the European Masters where, at the age of 18, he reached the last-16 and knocked Ronnie out en route.
“When I beat Ronnie, the whole thing was unbelievable”, Hill tells The42 from his family home in Cork. “The next morning, I was woken by a call. I was in bed, my phone rang and I answered it, thinking it was one of my family members. It was a private number.
“I’d a big sleepy voice and it goes, ‘This is the BBC here.’
“‘Awh, can I ring you back in five minutes when I wake up?’
“It was unbelievable: I was the number two trend on Twitter.”
The Beeb haven’t been ringing very often since.
“My first week as a professional, I got to the last-16 of a tournament, beating the likes of Andy Hicks, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Matthew Stevens”, reflects Hill. “You can’t do those things unless you’re a really good player. You can’t live up to that all the time, and I was kind of expected to, to be honest.
“When I started getting a few losses you’d see comments coming in, ‘One hit wonder’ kind of thing. I was only 18 years of age, it was my first time on tour. It’s not easy to live up to those kinds of expectations all the time.”
Since his star turn within Ronnie’s gravitational pull, Hill has been learning the hard craft of surviving on the sport’s outer orbit. There are fewer lonelier and more indifferent spaces in professional sport, particularly as a teenager in a sport with a lengthier claim to its active greats than any other.
“It has been really tough at times, to be honest”, admits Hill.
Since marking Ireland’s card with victory over O’Sullivan, Hill has been beyond the first round at a tournament just thrice.
“It is a really tough game, and the standard is so good, there are no easy games on the tour.
“I am definitely going through a tough patch at the moment. It took a while to find my feet on the tour and deal with the mental side of it, which is the toughest part. I’m getting stronger and stronger in that department the further I go, so every tournament is a good experience and a learning curve. I’m still only a puppy in the game, I’m only 19.
“I believe there’s a long future in the game for me, I believe it will come good at some point and I believe I will be here to stay.”
There is no doubting Hill’s talent. Just ask Ronnie.
“He’s said a few nice things about me since. I’ve a video of him on a podcast: he gets asked about up-and-coming talent. He mentioned three players and I was one of them. That was really nice to hear, coming from my idol.
“It makes you feel on top of the world, but it makes you work hard as well, to fulfill what he’s saying. To prove him right.”
Hill has relocated to the Merseyside – living with family friends established decades ago, during his father’s frequent cross-channel trips to watch Liverpool – where he says he needs to be to soak up as much experience and knowledge as he can. He practises at least six hours a day, working with another pro, Allan Taylor.
But life on the pro tour has taught him the greatest challenges are not technical.
“The mental side of it is tough. How to deal with losses. You could lose and play well. I’ve often played so well, barely miss a ball, and still get beat. That’s just the way it is.
“And then you’ve to get the train home. I could lose a narrow frame and then face a train journey home by myself: a cab to the train station, wait for the train, get the train home, and it’s all by yourself. It can be really lonely and depressing at times.
“The toughest part of it is the mental side, and that’s what took me the longest to get used to. I am always cool as a breeze, nothing much fazes me, but to get to the top of the game your mental side has to be strong.
“The last couple of months I’ve been working on myself more than my game, to be honest. If your mind isn’t right – no matter how good your game is in practice – you won’t be able to produce it on the main table.
“I’ve been reading a good book about controlling your mind and your thoughts. I’ve been trying to get my mind stronger. When you’re out there, it’s about how to deal with your own thoughts. You’re sitting in that seat and you’re not playing well and your confidence is low: you’re thinking of everything negative in the world. And there is no need for it.
“You should just be focusing on the next ball you’ll see on the table.
“You could easily miss an easy ball and leave your opponent in, and then sit in your seat dwelling on the missed ball, driving your own self mad. It’s crazy the amount of things that go on in your head out there: it’s such a lonely sport.
“You have to be able to control your mind and yourself, because there’s nobody else to do it for you.”
It’s a lonely sport made lonelier still by the pandemic. Hill’s pro debut came in empty arenas, with protocol sapping the colour and camaraderie behind the scenes. The first act on arrival at tournament was always test and isolate, with the familiar interaction between players curtailed.
“You’re dreaming you’re going to go pro and play in front of packed audiences and on TV, signing autographs and all that”, says Hill. “There was none of that last year because there were no fans let anywhere bloody near to watch. That was a bit disheartening, in a way.
“I wouldn’t say I didn’t feel I was professional, but it just wasn’t the tour. It wasn’t the real tour, it felt a fake tour. It was still a good buzz being around the players and interacting with them, but having no-one there watching you…like, I beat Ronnie behind curtains. Imagine there was a full crowd there?”
Hill also says he took time to learnt the jist of his new world. The isolation of pandemic snooker meant those small, almost insubstantial tips about life on tour gleaned from casual conversations are lost.
“Prime example: I used to fly into London to get to Milton Keynes, and I used to be getting cabs from the airport to the hotel. It used to be an hour drive and cost a hundred quid, for the sake of 15 quid on a train. I didn’t know much about it.”
And saving money is a necessary part of life. Ronnie O’Sullivan created a stir earlier this month when he said he wouldn’t let his child play snooker professionally, such are the financial struggles: tournament first-round losers – all of whom are among the best 128 players in the world – get nothing for their effort. They don’t even get expenses covered.
“That could be another reason why players like me – lower-ranked or younger – are losing. I am guilty of it myself, of putting unnecessary pressure on myself in first-round matches, just for a bit of dough.
“It’s not easy when you’re travelling week-in, week-out and you’re not winning matches, because you aren’t earning a dollar.”
Hill’s career earnings to date are listed publicly as £16,000, and he had to pay for his own travel and accommodation to earn it. He has sponsors - Tomás Singleton of SuperValu, Hollyhill and The Macau Casino – and most snooker players rely on the benevolence of others when starting out. Eamon Dunphy, for instance, once diverted some of his earnings from his successful biography of U2 to help out a promising young Dubliner called Ken Doherty.
“It’s my only job, where else am I supposed to get money? I’m lucky with the backing I have. I have good sponsors and my family would give me everything they have, so I am lucky. But it’s hard to get sponsors. Not everyone has sponsors.
“There are players who have to tap their bloody grandparents to get to a tournament. I’m not being a dickhead saying that, it’s the truth. Because I had to do it before. I don’t come from a family with money, like. I am trying to make my way on the world snooker tour, I’m playing on the biggest stages in the world, and just getting pipped narrowly and then not earning a cent for it. It’s not really fair. It’s brilliant what he [Ronnie] said, as it’s completely true. They could easily give first-round losers something, they can just take it off the winners’ cheque. I am sure the winners don’t need it as much as the likes of me and other players. It’s crazy. It’s not easy. It’s easy for people looking on to say, ‘Why isn’t he getting results, awh, he’s a one-hit wonder’, but they don’t know what it’s like to be playing under that amount of pressure.”
Hill is taking a couple of weeks off for Christmas, and will return in January where his aim is now to climb he world rankings and salvage his tour card for next season.
“It would be a good comeback”, says Hill. There’s no reason I can’t retain it, I am going to come good at some point.”
He is helped by the fact he has that fabulous streak of insurgency with which so many other Cork sportspeople are synonymous.
For instance: I ask him if he was intimidated by the prospect of facing O’Sullivan.
“I wasn’t just happy to be playing him, or being at the same table as him. I wanted to rip his head off.”
Hill says he is improving with every morsel of experience, dwelling less on defeats and focusing instead on the opportunities to right them the following week. Plus, he has had some tangible proof of the progress he is making.
He will be back at the European Masters next year, thanks to a come-from-behind qualifying win. Initially 3-0 and then 4-2 down in a first-to-five, Hill reeled off the final three frames to seal his place at the tournament.
It’s an achievement made more notable for the man he beat: Zhao Xintong, who recently won the UK Championship at the age of 24 and has been anointed by the snooker elders as their sport’s next big star.
Just don’t write off Aaron Hill.
