Ryan Thomerson: Australian hopes for upturn to keep WST card
- Published
Ryan Thomerson was beaten by Joe Perry just before Christmas in qualifying for the German Masters
Australia's Ryan Thomerson is hoping for a change of fortunes in the coming months to enable him to keep his place on the World Snooker tour.
The 29-year-old earned a two-year tour card by winning the 2022 Asia-Paciific Championship in New South Wales.
Cambridgeshire-based Thomerson spent several years on and off living with ex-world champion Neil Robertson.
"I love being on tour - but I haven't really had many wins," he told BBC Essex's Framed podcast.
"It's a bit disappointing being a season and a half in and being where I am on the rankings [114].
"It's a different game when you turn pro, it's a big step up and that's where I've found it tough in matches, just getting a bit nervous and just not getting the results."
A guaranteed £20,000 available to WST players has helped keep the wolf from the door for Thomerson, who started playing when he was 12 years old after the family moved to Australia from the UK.
Following Neil Robertson's hospitality, Thomerson offers his home as a temporary base for up and coming players
But he has again found wins hard to come by this season, and was beaten twice by Robertson at the last 128 stage of the Wuhan Open and International Championship.
"I didn't want to set a goal of getting to the top 64 or whatever in my first couple of years on tour.
"I just wanted to try and get a few wins instead of saying 'I need to do this' and 'I need to do that' to stay on tour," Thomerson said
"At the end of the day, there's not many players who stay on tour after their first stint. I'll be disappointed if I drop off after my first two years, but I wasn't thinking 'right, this is going to be a piece of cake'.
"There's not many tournaments left before the World Championship [qualifiers] and I just want to play well. I showed it [in the second match] against Neil, I made three or four breaks over 50 and I lost 6-4.
"They're the sort of games, if you can be consistent with [that form] when you're playing someone lower down the rankings, something's going to happen and you're going to start getting wins."
Thomerson, who practises at the home of another Cambridgeshire player, Joe Perry, started a car valeting business just before Covid was at its height in 2020 to help ease the financial pressure as he tried to establish himself as a professional snooker player.
"I was living with Neil and I had no money - and I'm not someone that would ask for money," he said.
"The neighbours that I was really good friends with, they volunteered their cars to be the first ones to get done. I was charging 10 to 20 quid to do their cars and it just got bigger and bigger, it became a five days a week thing.
"I was doing that till August of 2022 and then I thought it's just not gonna work if I'm doing valeting and snooker. It was then I found out about the £20,000 guaranteed, and I've not had to get a job again."
Thomerson admits he has not "kicked on" in the way he thought he would and needs to find the right "headspace" in the weeks to come.
He added: "You've got to practise, no matter what, but I'm not a massive believer in hours and hours and hours on the table.
"I'm mentally quite negative... if I'm not in a positive mindset or happy with what's going on in my life, I don't play very well.
"If the wins aren't going to come, they're not coming. But I'm trying to put myself in a place where I think it's going to help me get the wins."
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