Q School Event Three - the last four

18:37:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments

Kurt Maflin
We’ve come to the end of this year’s Q School, a new and innovative way for grabbing a place on Tour. During these past three weeks players from all around the world have tried to play at their best in order to get one for those 12 marvelous places that World Snooker was offering. Each event generated four winners, so the matches were played including the quarter-finals section, today being the last day and the last change to earn a spot on the professional circuit along with the heavy names.


The dream of playing with them was turned into a reality for Kurt Maflin, Adam Duffy, Stuart Carrington and David Gilbert. These four players are the winners of the Q School Event Three, an event that seems a bit tenser than the first two. A normal thing, if you ask me, since this was their last change to qualify on tour.


Kurt Maflin, I’m not going to lie, it’s a very dear player to my heart, mainly because I been following his career over the last season and I saw how much did he work, struggle and then put himself back together to qualify for China Open. He started with that magnificent 147 during PTC Event 1 and kept on living the dream of playing along with the best players in the world.


He was pretty unlucky to miss qualification during Q School Event One and Two, always losing by the same scoreline 4-3. However, the Goddess Fortune seemed to be on his side during the last event when he had a wonderful run.
He hammered Chris Norbury and Michell Travis 4-1, he crashed David McLellan 4-0, only see him return to the "4-1 pattern” against his last opponent, Martin O’Donnell. Now that’s a determined Englishman, now representing Norway! ;-)


Adam Duffy
Adam Duffy, the player that earned a Paul Hunter Snooker Scholarship in 2008, started this Event Three with his right foot. He whitewashed Lyndon Gordon 4-0, ended on a tight 4-3 with Stephen Rowlings, won 4-1 over Lee Walker, 4-2 over Alex Davies, only to see him put an end to David Gray dream of qualifying on tour after defeating him 4-2.


The highlights of the recent ended season tell us that Adam took part in the first five PTC events, during PTC 5 Event having the chance to go all the way through the Third Round, where he sadly lost 4-2 to Peter Ebdon. Q School related, he started the First Event in not such a good form, losing from the first round to Robbie Williams 4-1, but during the Second Event he made his way through the Forth Round, when he lost 4-0 in front of the Irishman David Morris.


Stuart Carrington
Stuart Carrington is a very well known presence for the first series of PTC and EPTC events. He took part in all the PTC`s and in EPTC 4. His best performance was in PTC 4 Event, when he successfully made his way to the Third Round. However, as well as Adam Duffy, he was going to lose in front of Peter Ebdon (this time by 4-0).


His evolution during the Q School weeks was indeed a very good one, for he ended up in Round Three in both Event One and Two. Event Three ... is however, anther story, a glorious one, as he crashed his first two opponents Nick Jennings and Justin Astley 4-0, hammered the mighty Li Hang 4-1 and Ian Burns by the same score, only to end on a 4-2 scoreline with Stephen Craigie in order to obtain the most desired Main Tour spot.


David Gilbert
David Gilbert, now that’s a name that you’ve heard about. The 29 year-old player from Derby is the one that had a pretty good season taking part in many PTC and EPTC events and putting quite a show in the qualifying rounds for the Shanghai Masters, World Open, Welsh Open, UK Championship, China Open and even the World Championship. A very good and ambitious player that proved he deserved a place on tour.


He started his Q School road with his eye on the prize, this being the reason why we’ve seen him reaching the quarter-finals stage twice! Yes! He ended up in both Event One and Two quarter-finals, but lost to Robin Hull 4-3 and to Tian Pengfei 4-2. He’s worked really hard to reach this point and that’s why, in all do honesty, I think he deserved to win O School’s Event Three.
He hit a wonderful 140 in Round Two against Robbie Williams, winning 4-1, experienced a bit of tension after that 4-3 against the Scotsman Bobby Cruickshanks, defeated India’s star Brijesh Damani 4-1 and the Assassin Allan Taylor by the same scoreline for that last spot on tour.


Sheffield lived hectic times these last past months with the World Championship and then the Q School, but now, for three weeks, until the mighty 2011/2012 will officially start, it can breath and take a bit of rest.
As for the players, some time off from tension will do them good, for the following season will definitely be a very hard one.


Congratulations to all the players, even if they won or not. In the end they all deserve to be admired for the effort ... it’s not that easy, you know?! :-))


Q School Event One winners: Andrew Norman, Adam Wicheard, Robin Hull and David Grace.
Q School Event Two winners: Simon Bedford, David Morris, Li Yan and Tian Pengfei.
Q School Event Three winners: Kurt Maflin, Adam Duffy, Stuart Carrington and David Dilbert.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)