The 2010 Paul Hunter English Open picked its champion

04:35:00 Ramona Dragomir 6 Comments

Courtesy of Mr. Steve Starkie
Last week I was telling you about the Paul Hunter English Open tournament and what a beautiful occasion this is to play snooker. The competition is held every year in Leeds at the Northern Snooker Centre; this year’s qualifying round took place between 11-14 October with the official event starting on October 18 and ending on October 20. Amateurs and professional snooker player all around the country but also from all around the globe tried to show to the whole world why they deserve to lift the trophy.
In the end, the one who succeeded was a young boy whose name has a very musical sonority - Robbie Williams. :-) The youngster from Liverpool defeated all his opponents and proved that the fact that he is not yet a professional doesn’t mean he’s not as strong or as talented as the rest of the players.


The Last 16 round didn’t see any tight battles, except for the one between Craig Steadman and Stephen Craigie, ended on a 5-4 score for Stephen and the one between Adam Duffy and James Silverwood, ended on the same 5-4 result for Adam.
Daniel Wells booked himself a nice place in the quarter-finals after crashing Gareth Green by a 5-0 scoreline, Robbie Williams beat the EPTC 1 runner-up, Matt Couch 5-2, Kuldesh Johal followed his example by defeating John Asthley with the same score, Jamie Barret won 5-3 over David Grace, Peter Lines saw his dreams crashed after losing 2-5 to Chris Norbury and Robert Valiant left the competition after being beat 3-5 by Andrew Norman.


The first part of the quarter-finals looked something like this: Daniel Wells said "bye,bye" after losing 3-5 to Robbie Williams and Kuldesh Johal continued his road to the semis, beating Jamie Barret 5-2.
The second part of the quarter-finals... now that’s where things got very interesting, for it was a total whitewash. Stephen Craigie eliminated Chirs Norbury 5-0, as well as Andrew Norman kicked Adam Duffy’s ass by the same result.
The ones who made it through the big final were, Robbie Williams (obviously :-P), after defeating Kuldesh Johan 5-3 and Stephen Craige, after winning 5-2 over Andrew Norman.


As the final started there was not doubt that the pressure was rising and the stress accumulated in competition was making itself noticed. A battle between a fresh 2008 turned pro player - Stephen Craigie and a yet to become one- Robbie Williams. The match ended on a 6-4 score, in favor of Robbie, who also hit an amazing 137 break to make it clear who rocked around the snooker table better :-))
In the picture above you can see R. Williams on the left, Mr. Steve Starkie in the middle and S. Craigie on the right.

Here, you have the century breaks list: Chris Norbury (101), Jeff Cundy (107), Nick Jennings (109), Ian Burns (112) and Robbie Williams (128,137).
And here, you can check all the results.


So, one more time the Paul Hunter English Open picked its winner from a crowd of very talented and ambitious snooker players. With a lot of hard work, tenacity and faith Robbie succeeded in lifting this year’s trophy and chasing the £ 2,000. Not enormous prize money, but I’m sure that the unique character of this tournament compensates everything. If we were to consider the tradition of this competition and the fact that in 2007 it was renamed after a great star of snooker, then the result will be an event very close to the souls of the people which live for this sport. :-)
The Referee’s Director from the English Association of Snooker & Billiards, Mr. Daniel Lewis shared with us his thoughts on this competition: "This is an excellent tournament which brings together all of the best amateurs in the British Isles, together with a number of Professionals and a 'sprinkling' of overseas Snooker stars from India and the continent."
I couldn’t agree more!


I don’t want to end this article without giving my sincere thanks to the Director of the PHEN tournament and referee, Mr. Steve Starkie and to the recent mentioned Mr. Daniel Lewis, for all their support in putting together this humble article.
Many congratulations to this year’s PHEN champion, Robbie Williams, but also to all of the other participants!


And to end this in a funny way, here’s Robbie during his "canto" years :-)))

6 comments:

Any Romanian players there?

Unfortunately no :-(

Cooool!!
And I like that song! especially the Green Day's cover! a funny one actually! :p

Thank you sooo much! :-)
Although no one can sing this song like Freddie Mercury, Green Day`s cover is wonderful! Sooo rockish! :-P

william devine said...

Congratulations robbie on your achievement on winning The 2010 Paul Hunter English open from all the boys from the E.S.W.A Club Well done mate.ps he is defo a better singer lol.

Thanks Williams for your comment.
Indeed, Robbie did a wonderful job in winning the PHEO trophy. :-)