Snooker Championship League (Winners` Group) - Stevens, the last man standing

Matt Stevens gets a place in the 2011Premier League

Ladies and gentlemen put your hands together to receive the one and only, the man of the moment, the champion that gets a free pass to this year’s Premier League of Snooker - Mattheeeeeeeeew Steveeeeeeeeeeeeens!!! :-)) Yes, Sir! The fire breathing Welsh Dragon, has succeeded to get back on his feet as to win Group’s 7 final, qualify at top of his group during Winners` Group’s first day and then ending being the winner of it! :-) What a journey that was!


For those of you who read my blog constantly it’s no surprise why Stevens had three points at the beginning of yesterday’s matches, but the Welshman was getting to score more during that last day, for he beat Ali Carter 3-2 and hammered his fellow-country Mark Williams with a 3-1 scoreline. This got him five lovely points and a place through to the semi-finals.
Shaun Murphy, the very, very fresh champion of PTC Grand Finals from Dublin, had two points from the other day and captured one more, as he beat Mark Allen 3-1 to also qualify for the semis and be on second place (he won 15 frames).
Next to follow were Ali Carter and Mark Williams also with three points in their pockets (each), but Ali having 14 frames and Mark 13.


The line-up was set and the players were ready as two more steps were separating them from that place in the Premier League.
On table one, Matthew Stevens was facing his fellow-country Mark Williams (again) and again the score was going to be the same 3-1 in favor of Stevens.
On table two, things were a bit more dramatic because Murphy and Carter were going to play all five frames. The opener was taken by "The Magician" with a break of 40, as well as the last one, with a break of 43. So the second name in the big final was Shaun Murphy.

The final between the two gladiators of snooker

A few minutes of relaxing and getting your strength back, and the boys were ready to go. A break of 51 was putting Stevens in front, but Shaun replayed with a marvelous 81 to draw 1-1. Sadly for the Englishman this was going to be his last chance to win a frame, because the next two were cashed by Matthew. It’s true that the scoreline for the 2-1 was 54-40, this meaning that there was quite a battle between these two gladiators, but the last one was 61-23, a crystal clear fact that Stevens was the winner with a 3-1 final result.
So here we are, we have the first name that will play in the Premier League of Snooker this year - Matthew Stevens - and he waited for quite some time to start travelling with the snooker caravan, because the last time he played in this competition was 2002!


Congratulations to the Welshman, but also to the other six player that demonstrated that snooker its their thing :-)) It’s been a very pleasant journey and Essex was the perfect host for snooker, as always :-)
See you at the 2011Premier League in September! :-)