Congratulations to Shaun Murphy who for the second year in a row has come through the huge field in Germany to take the 2009 Paul Hunter Classic title. Click below for a summary of how the event unfolded…
With 180 players involved at the start of the week, to say that the field was an open one is something of an understatement, but as was to be expected it was the 34 professional players who managed to come through the groups largely unscathed. Indeed the only one to not top his group was reigning world champion John Higgins following a 2-0 defeat to Warren Smith, but two wins against his other opponents at least saw him progress to the knock-out stages. As well as the pros, promising youngsters Luca Brecel and Jack Lisowski also managed to make it through by finishing top of their respective groups.
If there were few upsets in the round robins however then the last 64 more than made up for it as Higgins suffered a 3-1 defeat to Barry Pinches, winner of the event back in 2007. In addition world number 12 Joe Perry fell at the hands of young Belgian prodigy Luca Brecel, while Matt Selt, Tom Ford and Tony Drago were all sent crashing out of the tournament. The match of the round however was that between Ken Doherty and PIOS starlet Jack Lisowski, Ken eventually coming through 3-2 thanks to a break of 122 in the deciding frame.
Onto the final day and the last 32 stage which saw yet more surprises as world number two Stephen Maguire was hammered 3-0 by a resurgent Jimmy White, and another seven professionals lost out to lower ranked opponents. Other talking points were the exit of Luca Brecel at the hands of the experienced Jimmy Michie, as well as a tight clash between Michael Holt and Gerard Greene which unusually saw three re-racks in the five frames played. Eventually though they managed to complete the match, Holt coming through a 3-2 winner.
This would be as far as Michael would get however as Jimmy White’s run continued with a 3-1 win at the last 16 stage. Ken Doherty’s recent good form continued as he ended the hopes of Welshman Daniel Wells, while the biggest shock of the round saw Rory McLeod record a 3-0 victory over Mark Selby. Finally the last of the amateurs fell as Germany’s Itaro Santos, another protege of Del Hill, lost out 3-1 to the vastly experienced Joe Swail.
Mixed fortunes for the two Jimmy’s in the quarter-finals as White advanced with a 3-1 victory over Mark Davis, but Michie could do nothing about Joe Swail who won through 3-1. The man who beat both Michie and Swail at the recent Pro Challenge event in Leeds could not make into into the semis however as Doherty fell to world number three Shaun Murphy despite making breaks of 69 and 54 along the way. The big shock in this round would instead come at the hands of Rory McLeod, a 3-0 winner over three-time ranking event finalist Ryan Day who would go onto to face Murphy in the semis.
And what a match it was as Rory threatened to repeat the feat, moving 2-0 ahead of the former world champion with breaks of 45 and 40. Shaun is not one of the best players in the world for nothing however and despite not threatening to improve on the tournament high break of 139 that he set earlier in the tournament, recovered to take a 3-2 win and book his place in the final. The other semi-final saw Jimmy White come up against Joe Swail and despite a promising start from the Norther Irishman, it was White who managed to come through and set up a rematch of the World Series final from Killarney earlier this summer.
Unfortunately for Jimmy though it was to be a similar outcome to their meeting in Killarney as Shaun knocked in breaks of 91, 88, 74 and 35×2 to clinch the title by a 4-0 scoreline for a second successive year. While it is hard to read too much into the result (after all Shaun won the event last year yet still could not win a ranking event match before his UK Championship triumph in December), it is always good to be winning trophies and it will no doubt be a nice confidence boost heading into the Shanghai Masters in September. It is a similar story for White who having now won the Sangsom 6-Red tournament and reached the final here, is getting better and better at the moment.
But this event is about far more than the results and from the reports and photos over at Global Snooker at the moment, sounds like it has been yet another success story for snooker in Germany. With the Speed Snooker tournament (won by Welsh trio Ryan Day, Dominic Dale and Daniel Wells), supporting the main event, as well as the traditional Players Party, it is an action packed four days that all fans of snooker should try to get to one day.
I have heard whispers that the tournament is struggling financially at the moment and its future is not secure, but hopefully the event will be able to continue and that Shaun Murphy will be back next year to try and complete a hat-trick of titles.
To view pictures, results and standings from the event, please visit Global Snooker here.