Neil Robertson has tonight maintained his flawless record in professional finals by defeating Ricky Walden 4-1 to lift the PTC6 title in Poland and move back up into the top four of the world rankings. More on his success and the excellent run of Steve Davis to the semi-finals will follow…
- Click here to view the final standings at the first mid-season seedings revision
- Click here to view all of the scores and results from Poland
- Click here to view the new projected seedings list, looking forward to revision two
Neil Robertson tonight underlined his recent return to form with a fine victory against Ricky Walden to win the PTC6 event in Poland. It was far from straightforward however as after he laboured to a 4-2 victory against Daniel Wells yesterday having looked out of sorts early on, he then was forced to see off four top 32 players in the form of Gerard Greene, Peter Ebdon, Stephen Maguire and Shaun Murphy, all in deciding frames to reach the semi-finals.
Following his success against Murphy however Neil was able to turn on the style against Stephen Lee in the semi-finals, winning 4-0 before he then saw off Ricky Walden 4-1 in the event final. Having struggled between his World Open triumph a year ago until the start of this season Neil has shown improvement this campaign with runs to the final day of three PTC events prior to this one, as well as his strongest run in China to date at the recent Shanghai Masters where he reached the semi-finals.
Towards the end of this tournament however he confirmed that he is now very much back and moving ahead of Ding Junhui into the top four of the rankings, will be one of the men to beat during the coming months.
Also showing improved form was Ricky Walden who despite his defeat in today’s final can be very happy with his tournament which in truth has probably been his best since his Shanghai Masters triumph back in 2008. Having failed to make a real impression having broken into the top 16 during last season, he will now be hoping to get back up there and make amends.
Special mention must also go to 54-year-old Steve Davis who captured the imagination of snooker fans and players alike today with a tremendous run to the semi-finals today. Having already performed brilliantly with another cue to reach today’s last 16, he then saw off Mark King and Jack Lisowski to reach the last four before losing out to Walden. His win against Lisowski was particularly impressive, coming on the back of a four hour match with King with little by way of a break between matches.
He might not be the player that he once was but every now and again he proves the doubters wrong with a run like this and as Shaun Murphy commented (“Been inspired by @SteveSnooker this weekend here in Warsaw. Going to go home and practice harder than ever for the rest of the season”), continues to be an inspiration to players at all levels of the game.
Looking back over the tournament as a whole, the event appears to have been another real success in Europe as despite the absence of a few of the top players, the crowds have turned out in force and judging by the reaction from players on Twitter appears to have been a well-organised affair. Hopefully this will lead to something even bigger in Poland in the years ahead as we have seen with Germany in recent years.
So that’s brings the first stage of the season to a close as tomorrow the tournament seedings will be revised and to reflect that I have updated the projected seedings page to show everyone where the players will be starting next weekend in Gloucester. See the top of the page for all of the important links.
Stay tuned tomorrow for a comprehensive summary of all of the winner’s and losers at this cut-off.