Barry Hawkins shoots victory in Blackpool

The champion Barry Hawkins

Barry Hawkins beat former world champion, Graeme Dott 61-23 to become the second player to ever lift a Snooker Shoot-Out trophy at Blackpool. 

The road to victory implied beating heavy names from the snooker business, like Ding Junhui, Fergal O'Brien, Stephen Maguire, Mark Davis and Dave Harold.

The proud member of South West Snooker Academy's Pink Army, Hawkins beat the 2006 world champion, Graeme Dott to win his first snooker event this year and the first one since 2010 when he took the Pro Challenge Series - Event 5 title under his belt.

The 23-year-old lad from Kent started his Shoot-Out journey by beating Ding Junhui 53-27, the Irishman Fergal O'Brien 90-0, Stephen Maguire 87-1, his pink colleague Mark Davis 77-12  (break of 76 hit in the process), good old Dave Harold by 56-30 (break of 50), only to set up the final meeting with Scotland's Graeme Dott, whom he beat 61-23 after hitting in runs of 46 and 14.

One very happy runner-up - Graeme Dott

Runner-up Dott goes home with a check of £16,000 and the pleasure of performing extremely well in each match he played. 

Actually the only time the Scottish player wasn't in front of his opponent was in the final, but while facing Alan McManus, Ken Doherty, former 2011 runner-up Robert Millkins, Dominic Dale or Tom Ford he took his chances right from the beginning.

Martin Gould goes home with no less than £2,000 (besides the £4,000 for reaching the quarter-finals) for hitting the highest break of the tournament, a beautiful 135 one during the match against Jamie Jones.

For champion Barry Hawkins the victory itself as well as the prize money of £32,000 means a lot, considering that he is a very good player, but unfortunately a stranger from our TV screens. Hopefully, this title will give him a boost to hit the ball better but also get him playing in the big ranking events.