Michael Holt: Terry Griffiths 'helping my mental game'

Michael Holt is currently ranked 25th in the world

Michael Holt hopes linking up with 1979 World Champion Terry Griffiths will stop him being like a "broken record".

Holt, 37, has been in the top 32 in the world for most of the last decade, but is yet to win a ranking event and has never quite reached the sport's elite.

He said he had struggled with the mental side of his game in the past, after his 6-4 win over Fraser Patrick in the UK Championship first round.

"Terry knows everything," Holt told BBC Sport.

"It is a big thing that he can do the mindset stuff and put it in context," the Nottingham potter added.

"He knows what it's like out there and until you have been out there you don't know unfortunately.

"Obviously over the years I have created this reputation for being weak, and at times I have been horrendous. But I have not been in the top 32 for more than 10 years because I am rubbish.

"I have felt for a while that I am not that far away. That's where the frustration comes. I know I can play, I have been saying it for years and I sound like a broken record. But all I need to do is keep doing the right things and hopefully it will work."

Holt, a semi-finalist at the Shanghai Masters in 2013 and three-time tournament winner, started working with Griffiths last summer.

Griffiths, 68, has won all of snooker's "Big Three" events of the World Championship, UK Championship and Masters and is seen as one of - if not the - best coach in the game.

"I have known him for a long while but he has always been with a different stable and I have always been a lone ranger," Holt added. "But as soon as he became available he got in touch.

"We talk a lot and I have been to see him in Gloucester. He has been looking at everything and hopefully it will show.

"He knows it all. There were not many people I would go to ask for advice as far as coaching is concerned. It seems to be working. I feel good about it and we will see if it really is going to work in the future."