Snooker player Ali Carter might have been willing to turn his back on the sport after overcoming cancer and being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. The Colchester-born star wanted to take a break after enduring health issues at the peak of his career, but he admitted that life got in the way of any plans he may have had, forcing him to return to the game that he loved.
The 44-year-old is currently seeded 11th in the provisional rankings from the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, the world governing body for snooker. He quadrupled his earnings for the 2022-23 calendar year, taking home £223,500 – up from £68,500 in 2021-22.
One of his most famous recent triumphs saw him claim the German Masters and despite only reaching the last 32 at the World Championships, he reached the final in 2008 and 2012. In a career that has spanned three decades, Carter has had to cope with health issues but fought his way back to the table.
He had already made the quarter-final of the British Open when he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease back in 2003 at the age of just 24. In 2013, he was then diagnosed with testicular cancer before receiving the all-clear after surgery. But the following year in May, he found out he had lung cancer.
Back in April 2014, Carter told BBC Sport: “When you are diagnosed with cancer, nothing in the world matters other than your health at that point. And you say to yourself, ‘If I get the all-clear, I will have a year or six months off, or go on holiday for three months and I will look at my life and do all these sort of things’.
“But when you get healthy again, life doesn’t let you do that to a certain extent because you are running with the pack and, all of a sudden, the pack are running without you and you have to catch up again. The perspective soon changes and that is wrong really.”
Carter was later given the all-clear from the lung cancer in December 2014, meaning he had beaten cancer not once but twice. However, he knew that those plans to take some time away from the sport were also unrealistic as he had a family to support.
He said: “I did withdraw from a few events – the ones I had to – but I made sure I was right for Christmas time and after Christmas so I could get myself back in the top 16. I have a family and commitments so I need to go to work, do my job and earn money.
“Sometimes the choice is made for you. As much as it would be nice to put your feet up and have a couple of years out, realistically you start thinking to yourself ‘I have to get going now’. And while you can maintain being healthy, that is the time to do that.”
In a recent interview with Eurosport in April this year, Carter described being hindered by Crohn’s disease, a chronic condition where the gut becomes inflamed. And he admits that the side-effects of the disease left him feeling like ‘hell’.
“When I was a young man, 20 years old or something, I just used to get chronic, chronic stomach pains, like literally bent over stomach cramps and not knowing what it was,” Carter said.
“At the time, it was such a hard thing to diagnose. So I was having these problems for months and months and months and losing a lot of weight, not being able to retain food, on the toilet all the time. And living with it, it was nothing short of hell.”
Having decided to continue his career, Carter is in action at the British Open as he looks to bounce back from his Shanghai Masters defeat to Ronnie O’Sullivan. He faces Ryan Day at the tournament, hoping to surpass his best result of reaching the quarter-final back in 2002-03.
