Ryan Day wins thriller final to lift Romanian Masters trophy

Ryan Day beat Stuart Bingham 10-8 in a nail-biting final, to win the inaugural edition of the Romanian Snooker Masters. The match had it all, from gorgeously played shots, to unearthly snookers, nervy moments and ... a re-spotted black!

Recently returned from Gibraltar, where he won the Gibraltar Open after cruelly defeating Cao Yupeng 4-0, Ryan Day continued his good run and added the Romanian Masters trophy to his collection.

A well deserved back-to-back victory, that however, didn't come short from drama, as the Welshman had to make a comeback from being led 4-0.

The start of the match (which was refereed by the Romanian ref Alex Crisan) bared Bingham signature, beginning to end, as the 2015 world champion used runs of 57, 84 and 45 to take an amazing 4-0 advantage over his opponent.



But that 15-minutes break worked wonders for Day as the Welshman won his first frame of the final, on the black! Tremendous poise!

To this, he added a break of 63 and a 52 to go just one behind Stuart, but an awesomely cued 124 was re-establishing the two-frame gap, at 5-3.

However, just as the first session was coming to and end Day used a top break of 40 to pull back one. It was 5-4 and game on!

At returning into the arena, not only did Day manage to draw level for the first time since the final began, thanks to a 50 break, but also to take the lead after a thrilling and extremely dramatic 55 minutes frame.

A very focused Bingham hit back with a break of 84 to restore the balance of the match and took a very scrappy 13th frame to make it 7-6, but Day made the most of the next frame to get his feet back into the game.

It was a great 111 break that put Bingham two-frames short of winning the final, but from that point on, it was a "Day highway".



The Welshman used runs of 61 and 43 to take control of the match, 9-8, and squeeze the best of snooker out of frame 18, which landed on a re-spotted black. Because such a final couldn't' have ended any other way!

Away it went the black into a pocket and so did Day's fist that punched the air. He was champion once more and after quite a final!

The Welshman goes home with a prize money of 50.000 euros, while his opponent has to be thankful with just half of this amount and the pride of making the highest break of the tournament (137), which is not shabby at all.

Photo credit (1): Romanian Snooker Masters
Photo credit (2&3): Bogdan Campean