In capturing the third Players Tour Championship title of the season in Sheffield tonight, Ben Woollaston has made the breakthrough that his talent has long threatened.
The 24 year-old hails from Leicester, a snooker hotbed that has produced the likes of Willie Thorne and, more recently, Mark Selby and Tom Ford.
Woollaston is a contemporary of these latter two and has watched Selby become one of snooker’s leading lights and Ford win a PTC last season.
Now Woollaston has made his own significant step forward and what a moment it is for him, winning a tournament that included all of snooker’s top stars.
Graeme Dott started the final favourite as a former world champion, tough-as-old-boots match-player and someone who had already removed Ronnie O’Sullivan, Stephen Hendry and John Higgins from the tournament.
He seemed to hold the upper hand after scrapping out the third frame to lead 2-1 but Woollaston got his head down and won the last three frames for a memorable victory.
Earlier this year he got married to a woman from Belarus, a referee in fact.
Maybe this new found stability and maturity has helped his snooker. With a family to provide for, maybe it has focused his mind.
The other woman in his life, his mother, Joy, will also obviously be delighted, having accompanied him to so many tournaments through his junior and professional days.
Joy is certainly the word for the Woollastons tonight. Well done to Ben.
Well pleased for Ben, well-deserved.
ReplyDeleteAnother good event this week, being able to watch it makes all the difference too.
Disappointed for Dotty, he had a great series of wins this week, but hats off to Ben.
ReplyDeletegreat win !
ReplyDeleteNobody would have care about that 2 seasons ago : Ben climbs to #57.
I hope they will leave their bowtie someday.
Snooker is not a lord activity & tries to become global.
Off topic i know.dave is there no streaming of ptc4 on the betting sites or liveworldsnooker.tv ?.i read this on pro snooker blogs twitter.checked the livesnooker site says there are no events in the next 14 days.is this due to eurosport showing the event ?can you confirm what is happening thanks.
ReplyDeletei agree tatannes
ReplyDeletei think the need for formal dress in snooker is over, its the 21st century and things are different these days.
the stuffiness must put off a lot of people from giving snooker the time of the day.
id prefer to see the bow ties saved for the World Championships to give it that elite, important prestigious feel.
Trevor: Eurosport have the internet rights so it'll be on the Eurosport Player in Europe
ReplyDeleteyes its a contractual thing. and right as well Eurosport covers the Snooker brilliantly over the year so its only right that they have exclusive rights for Internet as well.
ReplyDeletethe coverage of PTC Germany is not the best but its there and on player so i will be purchasing player for when eurosport not broadcasting.
Thanks dave and wild,how do i sign up for eurosport player.what do i need to do ?thanks again
ReplyDeleteLast season only Power Snooker and Snooker Shoot-out could take off the formal dress.
ReplyDeleteI think the Paul Hunter Classic can try that.
just google eurosport player then you have a choice its £3.99 a month that should cover the shanghai masters aswell.
ReplyDeleteIf female tennis players are forced to dress up as fetishist sex dolls then I think snooker players can live with a bow tie.
ReplyDeleteThanks wild you say 'then you have choices to make' what are the other options to get the player other than the 3.99 a month ? Also can you just get it one month at a time or do need a years subscription ? Thanks again
ReplyDeletewith the Paul Hunter classic around the corner i got a bit nostalgic for the man himself and tuned in to youtube to see old matches and there they were around 2004 not wearing a bow tie at the masters. fast forward 7 years and they wearing bow ties in cubicles in sheffield.
ReplyDeletewhy wasent it evolved in to neat polo shirts by now instead of going backwards to waistcoats and bow ties ? nobody can say they did not at one point look towards the future. BUT it stalled for some reason.
There should be some sort of dress code. If anything goes was the rule it would become a joke. Cut-off jeans and a stained t-shirt? No thanks. We could lose the bowtie but let's maintain a certain standard. And congrats Ben!
ReplyDeletei dont care one way or another whether there is a dress code
ReplyDeletewhat i find "funny" is:
viewers complaining about the dress code.
if players dont want it then let them do something about it.
if they wear jeans and polo shirt or trousers and waistcoat it wont make a difference to you viewing the snooker.
7:03
ReplyDeletethe point is to make people come & play in snooker clubs.
My Grandma won't let me watch it on TV if they get rid of formal dress.
ReplyDeleteWhilst I am happy for Ben it can come as no surprise to find that these lesser formats are producing shock winners like hot cakes. Last season we had 12 different winners.
ReplyDelete1000 rank points would suffice for these as they are becoming virtual lotteries.
your theary is pretty off the mark
ReplyDeleteMark Williams
Mark Selby
Judd Trump
Shaun Murphy
Ding Junhui
John Higgins
Ronnie O'Sullivan
Judd Trump
8 out of 14 have been won by Class Players
Then theres
Stephen Lee
Dominic Dale
whos has won Ranking Tournaments.
So what if once in a while we get winners Like Marcus Campbell,Tom Ford,Barry Pinches and Ben Woollaston everyone has to win somewhere.
Seifer look at the quality of player who have won ptc event o'sullivan, higgins, williams, murphy, selby, trump (x2), ding all top quality players hardly make it a lottery just because a few other players have won events the cream usually rises to the top.look at golf there is a different winner every week and people say its great.
ReplyDeleteNone of those facts excuse 12 different winners, many of them way lower ranked, and the fact that many other lower ranked are getting to much further stages. It is polluting the overall rank positions. I am not against the format in PTC so much but the points awarded which I believe is too much for these 12 PTC's. It isn't proportional.
ReplyDeleteWhats the point of trying to win 7 matches in some cases two days for any less points i reckon a winner should get 2,500 its 28 frames needed to win a ptc.it takes either 30 or 31 frames to win a ranking event.it is a test of indurance to win a ptc dont knock it.
ReplyDeleteRonnie O'Sullivan would be strugling badly this season wihout PTC Points.
ReplyDeletefor a player that hates flying the 2,000 points could come in handy for him this season with so much flying to do.
The PTC points are fine as they are. The major flaw in the ranking points tariffs are those for the big events the UK and Worlds.
ReplyDeleteI guess now the UK is down to best of 11s then 8,000 is about right for it, but given the far superior length in format of the WC to other events, then i think for this only to be 10,000 points to the winner, when the likes of the best of 5 World Open was 7,000 points last season is a bit of a mockery.
The Worlds for me is the big one, head and shoulders above the rest and the rankings should reflect this. Id make it 15,000 to the winner and pro-rata all the other points by a 50% increase.
At the end of the day the WC 10,000 used to be on a 6 ranker tour with only about another 30,000 points available so it was 25% of the seasons total, now given all the PTCs and new rankers, the relevance of your WC performance to your seasons total is about 12% so its no longer of great significance to players in terms of ranking positions or points which takes a bit of shine off it IMO.
Maybe they should just level it for all the big televised tournaments, I don't think match length is the determinant they make it out to be. I doubt beating a player over three sessions makes you twice as likely to beat him next year, which is what the ranking system is effectively saying by awarding double points in some cases. Put all the tournaments down to 5000 points for the winner and be done with it.
ReplyDeleteYep...about time for Ben; the talent has always been there. His pedigree as a junior was second to none.For me this was well over due.I agree with some of the other comments; his new bride was maybe the focus that he needed...good luck for the future
ReplyDeleteSteve Woollaston (Dad)