![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/5444dbe4-2ded-42c4-8fa0-2450c5542c6d.jpg.webp\")
Michael Emons<\/strong>BBC Sport at the Crucible<\/p>\n
![\"Liam](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/fbc1f6c2-decf-41ed-b7dd-c352489c0463.jpg.webp\")
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, <\/p>\n
Chris Wakelin (right) defeated 20-year-old Liam Pullen 10-6 in the first round<\/p>\n
Following his victory over Liam Pullen, world number 13 Chris Wakelin said he was playing with a point to prove, singling out seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry as someone who criticises him.<\/p>\n
“Someone who doesn’t rate me at all is Stephen Hendry,” said Wakelin, “Every single
\nplayers’ event, whenever I’m playing a match on TV he always says the other guy
\nis going to win. I laugh about it every time and it gives me a lot of pleasure
\nto just go out there and do my thing.<\/p>\n
“He obviously doesn’t rate me at all because I’m not world number
\none or world champion in the past, but it’s my job to go out there and
\nfocus on my game. You’re always going to have critics in this sport as you do
\nin every sport so it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.<\/p>\n
“Even on his You Tube [channel] the other day, which I’m a big fan of and
\nwatch it every week, he said he fancied Liam Pullen to beat me,
\nand in the next breath he said ‘I’ve never seen him play before’.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got a massive
\namount of respect for anyone who’s ever won a tournament in this game, it’s so
\ndifficult. Stephen being a seven-time world champion, I’ve got nothing but
\nadmiration for the guy but he clearly doesn’t think I’m any good.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wakelin aims to prove Hendry wrongpublished at 10:30 BST 10:30 BST Wakelin 0-0 Robertson Michael EmonsBBC Sport at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":917346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-917345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116464736740523281","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/917346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}