More Controversy for McLeod

Just a few months after being accused by Ricky Walden for slow play during the World Championship, Rory McLeod causes more controversy by refusing to shake hands with a female ref under religious grounds after winning his recent Australian Open qualifying match.

At the Australian Goldfields Open qualifiers at the Sheffield academy, Rory McLeod had just completed a 5-2 victory over Gloucester's Robert Milkins which means that he had qualified for the televised stages in Australia.

As is customary at the end of any snooker match, professional or amateur to then shake hands with your opponent and then the referee but that didn't happen on this occasion.

The story first broke from top ref Jan Verhaas on his Twitter page who posted: "Rory McLeod refused to shake female ref Ivy Zhu's hand this morning because of his muslim believes. You may think what you like about it..."

It is not uncommon for Muslim men to avoid contact with women but to outright refuse to shake hands in a professional manner with her just because Ivy was a women is a bit unfair on her part. But she seems to be indifferent to the issue though. According to one report on Twitter she even joked to others that it helped save time after Rory won the match.

Against what people think though, Rory is a good snooker player and we will probably see more of him at the venue stages of tournaments in the future if his current form continues. Lets just hope though that an official or someone had a word with him and that it won't happen again and he accepts that the handshake is a part of the game and it's just courteous and professional to do it no matter who the referee or even the player is.