A Higgins v. Gilbert Daqing Final

21:32:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments

After a week of tremendous matches, the time has come to bring on the very top of the top players in the grand finale and this year's International Championship final is going to be played by John Higgins and David Gilbert.

Higgins had a pretty amazing run throughout this tournament, many have whispered "vintage Higgins" is on again, so the semi-final against Mark Selby, although not easy, was a clear victory of 9-4.  

Breaks of 54 and 101 were sure to give the Scotsman a strong advantage of 3-0 and despite Selby's breaking the ice in frame four, Higgins used runs of 87 and 58 to go 5-1. This was pretty intense even for the beginning of the match.

Selby did pull back two consecutive frames in order to keep his hopes of a comeback pretty much alive, but when his opponent stroke in breaks of 64 and 54 to go 8-3 up all turned into a pretty messy and difficult affair.

Still, the world number one is known as a master of comebacks so when he mastered a 79 break to reduce his deficit at four frames, fans were hoping for a turn of tables.

However, a missed yellow with the rest down on frame 13 proved quite costly, this landing Higgins the chance to cruise to a well-deserved 9-4 victory.

So, after winning the Welsh Open and the Australian Goldfields Open this year, the "Wizard of Wishaw" is in for a good chance to get some silverware under his belt and level Steve Davis on ranking titles captured as a pro.

Things won't be easy though, as his opponent, David Gilbert is so very eager to get his hands on his first ranking title and we've only just witnessed Kyren Wilson doing it just a month ago at the Shanghai Masters.

Gilbert won 9-5 over Thai Thepchaiya Un-Nooh although the first part of the match proved to be quite a balanced snooker love affair.

That is until David went on to take lead 5-3 thanks to a top break of 83 and extend that lead at 8-3 (sustained by a considerable ton of 112 points).

Un-Nooh managed to prolong the suspense and added to more frames to his poor collection, but it was Gilbert who made the most of a scrappy last frame in order to book himself a place in the final.

So, without any further ado I'll just say this: it seems we are going to have a pretty intense final on our hands, so be sure to watch it tomorrow! No excuses!

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2015 Ruhr Open - German Glory for Rory McLeod

00:18:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments

Rory McLeod beat China's Tiang Pengfei 4-2 in order to lift this year's Ruhr Open trophy, but also record his first ranking victory since becoming a snooker pro.

The beautiful German snooker adventure started with  a 4-2 win over Craig Steadman, followed by a close victory of 4-3 by playing Jamie Jones and Mark King, continued with a 4-1 in the Last 16 against Ben Woollaston, another cracking 4-3 in front of Mark Davis and ended with a 4-1 with Mike Dunn before having to face Tian.

The final battle took place in front of a packed audience who was rewarded if not with the fastest game of snooker, at least with a genuine and heartfelt one.

McLeod was the first one in, runs of 57 and 39 winning him the opener, while a scrapping second frame was cashed by the 44 year-old player with a 41 clearance.

Tian made a very good 74 break during frame three, but Rory used a 58 to move just one away from victory.

However, this didn't make his opponent tremble so Tian used a wonderful 106 break to pull back a frame and keep the match alive.

Sadly for him though, McLeod was in the mood for winning and this was proved by a 55 break in the following (and last) frame. 

After the match Tian (who also experienced his first ever ranking final today) declared he was indeed pretty tired after playing for two days, but added that he fully enjoyed the few days spent here in Germany and expressed his intention of coming back next year.

In the winning corner, Rory expressed his delight for winning hit first ranking event and admitted that he is a very "precise" player, but also that was very relaxed throughout the entire tournament and "just played snooker".  The winning recipe, may we add?

Next, we shall be visiting the city of Haining in China for the Asian Tour Event One that runs from October 19 to 23.


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