Photo courtesy of Janie Watkins
Congratulations to Martin Gould, who has tonight defeated Stephen Maguire 4-3 to lift his maiden professional title at the UKPTC2 event in Gloucester and secure the £10,000 top prize…
Martin Gould won a tournament carrying ranking points for the first time by beating Stephen Maguire 4-3 in the final of UK Players Tour Championship event two at the South West Snooker Academy in Gloucester.
Londoner Gould climbed into the top 16 last season and also won the Power Snooker event, and can now add a PTC title to his snooker CV. Victory is worth £10,000 plus 2,000 ranking points to the 30-year-old former casino croupier.
Scotland’s Maguire won UKPTC1 last month and looked on course for a repeat victory when he took the first frame of the final with a break of 64. Gould hit back to win three of next four frames, compiling runs of 65 and 52 and nicking the fifth on a respotted black.
Maguire won the next for 3-3 and when he fluked a red when escaping from a snooker in the decider he had the chance of a match-winning break, but could only make 41. The frame came down to the colours and Gould potted an excellent long green and added the brown and blue to win the title.
“It feels amazing to win a tournament with ranking points for the first time,” said world No 16 Gould. “My aim now is to win some big titles.
“Last week I started working with a coach called Stephen Feeney who has done a lot for the likes of Mark Davis and Stuart Bingham. He noticed a fault in the way I was sighting the ball and fixed it straight away. The improvement has been beyond my expectation and every time I was among the balls this week I felt as if I was going to clear up.
“I lost a lot of close matches at the end of last season and I realise now that was because of the problem with my sighting and cue action. It feels great to know it is fixed.”
The Players Tour Championship is a series of ten events, four in the UK and six in Europe, with the top 24 on the final Order of Merit going through to the Grand Finals in March. They will be joined by eight players from the Asian PTC Order of Merit.
The next event is Betfair European Tour 1 (the Paul Hunter Classic) from August 23-26 in Fuerth, Germany.
Results (last 16 onwards):
Last 16
Stephen Maguire 4-3 Shaun Murphy
Pankaj Advani 0-4 Alan McManus
Joe Perry 4-3 Michael White
Nigel Bond 0-4 Mark Williams
Alfie Burden 4-1 Robert Milkins
Judd Trump 2-4 Ryan Day
Ben Woollaston 4-1 Liang Wenbo
Martin Gould 4-3 Mark Allen
Quarter Finals
Stephen Maguire 4-1 Alan McManus
Joe Perry 4-1 Mark Williams
Alfie Burden 4-3 Ryan Day
Ben Woollaston 2-4 Martin Gould
Semi Finals
Stephen Maguire 4-3 Joe Perry
Alfie Burden 1-4 Martin Gould
Final
Stephen Maguire 3-4 Martin Gould