Congratulations to Stephen Lee who has tonight defeated Bjorn Haneveer in a high quality tussle to take the Vienna Open 2010 title…
Stephen Lee 5-4 Bjorn Haneveer
74-40, 104(101)-4, 9-110(98), 74-7, 0-127(107), 31-49, 96(56)-0, 64-23
It has been a difficult few years for Stephen Lee since he dropped out of the top 16 at the end of the 2007/8 season but tonight he has given his followers something to smile about as he won a topsy turvy final against Belgian pro Bjorn Haneveer.
As you can see from the scoreline it was Stephen who looked the stronger early on but Bjorn responded well with breaks of 107 and 98 to turn the tables and move into a 4-3 lead. Lee though showed his class with a break of 56 to force a decider in which he duly delivered.
His first title of any sort since his surprise capture of the Welsh Open back in 2006, it is good to see Lee back to winning ways as he remains a quality player capable of troubling any player on his day. His main problem during the past couple of seasons is on paper inconsistency as he has not managed to qualify for the TV stages of events on a regular basis, but hopefully this will bode well for him.
To view the results from the week in full, please click here.
As an aside, Fergal Brien has also got his hands on some silverware tonight, defeating Michael Judge 5-1 to capture the Lucan Racing Irish Classic. Congratulations to him also!
I’m well pleased to see Stephen Lee win again. Reason being, is that he’s still got a beautiful cue action & his touch & timing when striking the cue ball is something else.
With a little bit of luck he can draw confidence from this win & kick on from here.
Good Luck to him too.
Matt, there is one frame score missing here which happened to be the biggest break of the match. Haneveer had a 116 to go 4-3 up. He missed the final blue in that break. It would have earned him the high-break price of €400 which now went to Lee for a 120 earlier in the event.