Nick Metcalfe snooker column: This is maximum madness... but is it taking the shine off the 147 break?

There have been 10 already in this campaign. That's compared with three, two and three by the end of September in the last three seasons.

Even the statisticians who have seen it all have been shaking their heads in bemusement at this one.

So what's going on? It's an obvious starting point to say that standards are rising throughout the game. But they have been for many years. Why has the last three months been so dramatic?

Freak periods happen in all sports of course. A spate of world records in athletics for example. It could just be one of those spells.

Nobody would be that surprised if the rest of the season settles down into a more regular pattern from this point onwards.

'Like a computer game'

What is undeniable in my view is that the players are feeding off each other. It's catching, in the best way possible. I've felt it at tournaments before when we see a succession of serious attempts at a maximum. You just sense that one is on the way.

There's a similar feeling now, across all events. When you're watching on television and a player has potted five reds and five blacks, you're half expecting them to make it all the way to 147 points.

Remember, it's not just the 10 maximums but countless other close run things already this season.

This current crop of professionals are making a complex and frustrating sport look like a computer game, due to their excellence.

And it's not just the cream of the crop either, as it might have been in past decades. Players throughout the tour are good enough to record maximums now.

Is it taking the shine off one of snooker's great selling points? Seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry suggested recently that might be the case. A bit like the nine darter, once a rare occurrence and now pretty commonplace.

I suppose it's hard to argue they're as newsworthy as they once were. Yet there is still a mystique.

Put it this way, if you're in the arena watching a maximum attempt, are you ever going to sit there as the player in question reaches the colours and think, not for me, the shine has been taken off these?

That's very unlikely in my books. Instead, I suspect you'll be on the edge of your seat willing the player on to finish the job. The player's opponent will be the same (well, most of the time anyway).

Other tables will often pause their matches. Everyone backstage will be glued to a television set. These moments take over entire buildings. I can't see all that ever changing really.

What Ronnie O'Sullivan did in Saudi Arabia recently – as I reflected in my first Sporting Life column of the season – took it up another level, with two maximums in a one-session match. It was spellbinding stuff and followed Jackson Page making a pair of maximums (in different sessions) in a World Championship qualifier a few months earlier.

That's sport. It's all about the next achievement, the next landmark. What's next, who knows? Maybe 147 breaks in successive frames? It sounds absurd to suggest it, but we'd have said that about two in one session not so long ago.

Maybe a maximum to win a world title? I'm just chucking ideas out there really. The standard is now so impressive that nothing feels out of the question.

I heard Dominic Dale calling a potential 147 break in commentary when a player was on their second red at the English Open two weeks ago. In past times, I'd have thought it was too early. Now, it honestly just feels like good practice for pundits.

I've tired myself out in recent weeks looking for answers over this run of maximums. The truth is there are no clear answers.

We are seeing outstanding sport from very talented practitioners right now. The next maximum could be made any time, any place. Keep your eyes on the screen.

A Rolls Royce of a snooker player

Shaun Murphy was a brilliant winner of the British Open. We talk about the tournament's 'FA Cup style format' so much, it's become a cliche.

But it sure did come into its own with this Murphy run to the title in Cheltenham. Having to beat Neil Robertson, Judd Trump and Mark Selby is a monstrous effort, even in short format matches. He then finished the job by seeing off Anthony McGill in a hard-fought final on Sunday.