I'm a sad git who emotionally overinvests in sports. And I've spent the last week following Liam Davies' latest attempts to get on the Snooker Main Tour in some amateur tournaments from Sarajevo, shown live on YouTube.
He's been very close a good few times in the last couple of years, and so, even though he's still only 17, it was getting pretty frustrating seeing him just miss out so many times. Last week, he was 9-7 up in the final of the first of those tournaments, against a much more experienced player - needing just 1 frame to win his place on the tour - only to lose the last 3 frames and get beat 10-9 and agonizingly miss out once again.
He then immediately featured in the Euro U21's, with again a 2 year place on the tour for the winner. So once again I was one of the very few saddos watching the games from Sarajevo on YouTube. And this time it was well worth it, as he managed to win the tournament and finally get himself a main Tour card!
I'm not predicting huge things of him in the Luke Littler style or anything like that. But he's a good young player and I'm hoping he'll be able to compete well enough to stay on the Tour at least.
That's now all four of the youngsters that I've been rooting for over the last few years that have got onto the Tour. Young Stan Moody got on last year, and the two Belgians (Ben Mertens and Julian Leclercq) got on the year before that. Though they both face a tough final couple of months to secure their Tour cards for next season, as might Moody next year. But they're all still young and they'd have benefitted from the experience of being on the main Tour in the long run even if they end up having to qualify for it all over again.