Ross Muir using tragedy as driving force after turbulent snooker career so far
At just 30 years old Ross Muir has been through a lot in his career but he is using a painful time away from the table as a driving force to succeed on it.
The Scot first turned professional in 2013, earning his spot on tour when he came through Q School as a 17-year-old.
In his own words he has ‘definitely not shown anything at all’ since then, with last 16 runs his best in ranking events.
Muir firmly believes there is more to come after some tough times of late were understandably distracting him from snooker.
His mother passed away in February, over a year after being diagnosed with heart failure, a number of months which saw snooker fade into insignificance.
‘It’s still a bit surreal. She was my best friend and very supportive with snooker,’ Muir told Metro. ‘She has been with me for the whole journey. She always loved watching my games and we always chatted after the games. So from that perspective it’s a massive gap in my life now.
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‘I can’t put it into words to be honest, and I don’t think there really are words to describe it. It’s just one of these horrible things in life, it’s cruel, you know, it’s cruel to everyone involved.
‘It was tough over the last year. I took a step aside from practice. I was just going tournament to tournament and every other ounce of my time was put onto my mum to try and find ways to help her, ways to make her better.’
After his time spent looking after Margaret, she left him with words of encouragement to get back to focussing on snooker.
‘She had a good talk with us,’ he said. ‘She wanted us to look forward. She wanted me to be a snooker player again. She appreciated all the time that we spent together. But she did ask me to be a snooker player again, so that’s what I’m trying to be.
‘After the World Championship [qualifiers], I shook Robbie Williams’ hand, got in the car, came back home and that was me back into work mode. The following day I was on the practice table and I’ve been working harder than I’ve ever worked before. I’ve been tackling all the technical problems that were in my game. I’m really delighted with how things have come out.
‘I realise there’s two ways a tragic event like this can impact a person: very negatively or you can use it as a driving force. That’s what I’ve tried my best to do.
‘There are great signs going forward, as an opponent I’m a different prospect than I’ve been for a couple of years. I’m starting to play proper snooker again. I don’t need to try and grind things out like I was doing over the last year.’
The world number 109 needs to show those improvements on the table this season if he is to hold onto his tour card, but he is confident deep runs are in there.
He practices with the likes of John Higgins, Anthony McGill and Scott Donaldson in his base in Musselburgh – an old church building his table has been in for years.
On his ceiling of the last 16 so far in his career, he said: ‘That’s definitely not my limitation by any means. Over the years I’ve been a little bit turbulent with various different things. I’m trying to just be a bit more consistent and a bit more stable.
‘I certainly don’t want to be in a position of just grinding by, getting near the top 64, falling off, resetting. That’s not what I want to do, I want to be pushing a lot further forward than that. And I definitely know that I’ve got the game, I’ve got the determination to do that, and that’s definitely the two things that that are required to achieve that.’
Of his career turbulence, there was nothing more destabilising than the ocular migraines he suffered so badly that he thought he was retired from snooker in his twenties.
He suffered the nightmare condition in 2019, leading to falling off the professional tour as he was hit by significant vision loss on a daily basis.
‘I was pretty much not seeing anything,’ he explained. ‘It was 90 per cent vision loss when it was at its worst. I think it was pressure driven, so generally the more pressurised the match was, the worse it would get.
‘There’s no pain at all involved in it. The way I would describe it is you’re in a room that’s filled with smoke. And it was every single day, sometimes multiple times a day.’
Muir thought his career was over when the issue was at its worst, saying: ‘When I fell off the tour, at the end of the second year of suffering, I was done with it. I thought, what’s point of battling when you can’t see, when I can’t see the break-off? There seemed no point in pursuing it.’
He didn’t pick up his cue for six months and the issue eased, with the pressure of matches one of the triggers to bring on the migraines.
Muir also found out there were triggers based on diet, fitness, stress and he has worked out a lifestyle that keeps them under control.
The Scot thought snooker was over for him and got security jobs in Edinburgh at an office building and railway station, but the lure of the baize brought him back.
‘I was comfortable for a while, but missing snooker started to creep in and that feeling became a little bit too strong,’ he said.
‘It took me probably a year to get my game back. That year I was absolutely awful, losing first rounds in Q School, Scottish snooker, I couldn’t win a match. I was doing it as a bit of fun as a hobby. But I think because you’d been doing snooker that long, that’s not really acceptable.’
He put the hard work in to get his game back in shape, while controlling his diet and fitness to keep the ocular migraines at bay.
Muir returned to tour in 2023 by winning the European Amateur Championship and has a very positive outlook on his sport after feeling that it had been taken from him.
‘I’m absolutely delighted. Snooker’s a wonderful job,’ he said. ‘I’m very lucky to be able to play the game professionally. I’m very grateful for that opportunity.
‘At that point in my life when it was at its worst, I wasn’t really going anywhere. It was certainly a concerning time.
‘As a whole I’m very fortunate. It’s a perspective thing. That’s something that I’m always very mindful of and now I use it as a form of motivation in, in the sense of, right, I’ve got access to these pro events. Enjoy them.
‘That’s first and foremost, enjoy what you have there because there’s much worse positions to be in.’
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Ross Muir using tragedy as driving force after turbulent snooker career so far
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