THE World Championship is snooker’s version of Test-match cricket.

It is a measure not only of break-building, shrewd safety and masterly cue-ball control, but also of how well a player can navigate long sessions of snooker and even longer matches, and handle the tension produced by the tournament’s unique and iconic Sheffield setting, the Crucible Theatre.

This year’s tournament is already down to the fabled one-table setup – the partition separating the two tables from the early rounds is lifted and the sport becomes real theatre.

At the time of writing, the best-of-33-frame semi-finals between Kyren Wilson and Anthony McGill, and Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Selby, were too close to call going into the final sessions. The gruelling best-of-35-frames final begins today, and a small number of fans will be allowed in to watch.

The lack of spectators so far has meant some of the edge has been lost at the South Yorkshire venue which has been the tournament’s home since 1977.

Attempts were made to accommodate spectators for the opening sessions of the first round, but a government U-turn on plans to use the event as a pilot for allowing fans back to live sport was so abrupt that many were already sat in their seats by the time the decision was reversed.

“Having no crowd meant the first session felt a little bit eerie,” said Selby following his first-round win against Jordan Brown.

“With the way the situation is here, no crowd makes it a bit more of a leveller, especially for the debutants.

“If there was a full crowd they might normally be rabbits in the headlights, but I don’t think that’s the case this time.”

The Crucible is usually an arena of tension. An intimate motivator for some, a claustrophobic cauldron for others. It can lift a player at the top of their game and give champions moments they will never forget, but it can also leave a player who is stuck in a rut looking like they want their seat to swallow them up.

A wider view of the theatre’s one-table setup gives the air of a technical rehearsal rather than a main event, but snooker transmits very well to television, and a global TV audience brings its own pressure and sense of occasion.

The cameras zoom in on every shot and every reaction, and that pressure can get to even the most talented cue-men. It makes the mental side of the game, which even at its most relaxed is as much about psychology as skill, even more taxing.

One semi-final featured two previous champions, Selby and O’Sullivan, while in the other, neither Wilson nor McGill had made it to a final before. So this year’s tournament still has the potential to crown a new winner as it did last year when Judd Trump triumphed against John Higgins.

Trump fell foul of another of the game’s mental blocks, the “Crucible curse” — no new winner has retained their crown since the tournament moved to the venue — losing to Wilson in the quarters.

Meanwhile O’Sullivan, a five-time champion, has alluded to the gruelling nature of the World Championship throughout his latest visit to Sheffield, using a tennis analogy to give insight into the sporting side of the tournament.

“I probably need to be like a [Novak] Djokovic,” he told Eurosport ahead of his meeting with Selby. 

“Djokovic is double solid, he does everything very well and he’s not going to give you anything. 

“He’s not the most flamboyant, he’s not going to give you the [Roger] Federer brilliance or the [Rafael] Nadal forehand but he’s there from start to finish and his form doesn’t dip much. 

“I’ve always said to win in Sheffield you have to have that steady-state type of game.”

O’Sullivan was describing Djokovic, but he may as well have been describing his opponent, Selby, who won his three titles in a four-year period between 2014 and 2017, the Crucible curse seeing him miss out in 2015.

Should O’Sullivan make the final, he could become the only player since Joe Davis, who dominated the early decades of the tournament in the 1920s and 30s, to win a title more than 19 years after his first.

There are a number of storylines developing, but whoever wins this tournament will do so in unique circumstances.

So far, big breaks and outstanding shots have been greeted with canned applause in the venue, but as the green baize is beamed around the world as the final gets underway, around 300 fans will be allowed in for each session.

It’s a change in conditions which could affect both players, but if Selby’s words are anything to go by, the debutant at this stage could be affected the most, especially as they might have become used to the empty arena in the past couple of weeks.

It makes the long road to winning the game’s ultimate prize that little bit more challenging, and snooker’s biggest test even tougher.