Snooker Championship League (group 7) - Matthew Stevens, the last name on the list

Matt provides us with the complete line-up

The Welshman Matthew Stevens succeeded in winning 3-0 over Liang Wenbo in Group’s 7 final, completing the line-up for Winners` Group. Although he was struggling in winning a decisive final since he started back in Group 4 matches, Stevens demonstrated us his ambition by trying over and over to get a place in the final stage of the Championship League of Snooker.


Stephen Lee was the one who started as a favorite after winning three out of three matches during Day 1, but yesterday he only succeeded in winning one match out of three (3-1 with Martin Gould), this getting him one point that added to his other three set him on third place, but still guaranteed him a place into the semi-finals.
Liang Wenbo won all his remaining matches, hammering Marco Fu 3-1 and crashing Stephen Lee 3-0, to get four points, but with 15 frames on the board, he "graduated" top of his group.
On second place, came Matthew Stevens, him cashing three victories: 3-1 with Cue-Man Fu and Martin Gould and a tight 3-2 with Andrew Higginson. And since we are talking about Higginson, he came on forth place, after whitewashing Stephen Lee 3-0 and ending a close encounter with Mark King 3-2.


The semi-final between Matthew Stevens and Stephen Lee ended on a 3-1 scoreline, the Welshman being the one who broke the ice and hit a marvelous set of breaks (61 and 134), Lee replayed with a 55 to pull one back, but the final shot was yet to come: Stevens made a 50 to close the deal and get a place in the final.
At the other table, things were quite dramatic, Liang Wenbo winning 3-2 over Andrew Higginson, after quite a battle of cues. A break of 61 was giving Higginson the opening frame, but Liang hit a stunning series of 43, 74 and 117 to set the final with "The Welsh Dragon".


The final battle didn’t last too long and why should it have lasted, when Stevens was cueing wonderfully and hit in runs of 101, 30 and 76 to cash all three frames and perform the whitewash of the day. The Welshman was the last name that we needed to have the complete line-up for starting the Winners` Group matches.
And because we are on this subject, here’s today’s schedule:


Table 1


Table two
*all hours are UK time


Please note that the rule at hand stays the same (the best to five) and that at the end of Day 2, we shall have the first name for this year’s Premier League of Snooker, so fingers crossed for your favorite player! ;-)