By Elliott West
“One day when I looked up to the sky, I found almost 200 small black spots in my left eye”.
Marco Fu
Introduction
One of the essential requirements for any snooker player, especially a professional one, is good eyesight. We have all seen what happens when this starts to fade and it is one of the key reasons why greats like Ray Reardon decided to call it a day. The only player that I can think of who manages to play with glasses is Martin Gould with others opting for corrective laser eye surgery. When your eyesight starts to go, it plays havoc on a snooker table, especially with the glaring television lights and all the rigmarole that comes with it, eye floaters, blurred vision and painful headaches being just a few symptoms.
Corrective eye surgery is a risk and there is no guarantee that it will solve the problem. Your eyes naturally degenerate with age, a process that is called presbyopia so anything that slows down the process must be welcomed. The only safe thing is to say that your eyes won’t be as bad as they were before. However, if you suffer from an autoimmune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis or diabetes, laser eye surgery is not recommended. Less than 1% of this surgery causes complications after the procedure is carried out.
Losing Focus
One such example is Marco Fu who has battled eye problems in recent years. Suffering from retinal degeneration and myodesopsia in his left eye, prompted this Hong Kong snooker player to undergo laser eye surgery in December 2017 to try and resolve these problems and prevent an announcement of retirement. Sadly the surgery only healed his retinal problem and there is still a risk that it might lead to retinal detachment he still suffers from black spots in his left eye when he stares at strong light.
Marco has won three ranking titles, the 2007 Grand Prix, the 2013 Australian Goldfields Open and the 2016 Scottish Open, but has fallen down the rankings in recent years, currently ranked 89. A ranking that doesn’t reflect the brilliance of this player who reached the final of the 2008 UK Championship and the 2011 Masters and the semi-finals of the World Championship twice in 2006 and 2016. However, after a two-year recovery period away from the tour, Fu returned in 2022, not making an impact and dogged by COVID-19 travel restrictions still in place in Hong Kong.
The Road to Recovery
Recovering from any form of surgery is never easy, especially when there are still ongoing problems. The first glimpse of Marco’s return to form came when he reached the final of the invitational 2022 Hong Kong Masters. Invited as a local wildcard, Fu was impressive, making his fifth maximum break against John Higgins in the deciding frame. He went on the lose 4-6 to Ronnie O’Sullivan in the final but the event was a roaring success with a record 9,000 audience at the new venue of the Hong Kong Coliseum which hadn’t been held since 2017 when Neil Robertson defeated Ronnie O’Sullivan 6-3 in the final.
A smile was brought to my face when I read that Marco Fu would appear at this year’s German Masters in Berlin. His first-round match against Alfie Davies. However, when the match was played on Wednesday night, play had to be abandoned. Trailing 1-3, Marco spoke to the referee and said he would have to withdraw for medical reasons. The reason was that he was suffering from double vision. Alfie was awarded a 5-1 win and now faces Si Jiahui in the Last 32. A sad way for Marco to exit an event but wish him a speedy recovery and a return to tournament play soon.
