You can’t beat a bit of alliteration. Anyway, Jamie Cope has tonight defeated both Peter Ebdon and Ding Junhui to book his place in the winner’s group of the Championship League which will start tomorrow…
Having performed so well during Group Five earlier in the competition before losing out to Neil Robertson in the final, Stoke’s Jamie Cope managed to go one better tonight with a 3-1 victory over UK champion Ding Junhui. This came following a tight semi-final against a returning to form Peter Ebdon who opened the match with a century before eventually losing 3-2.
Together with Mark Williams these were the four outstanding players of the group as they won 17 of their 24 matches played. Michael Holt however was able to win just two matches while both Steve Davis and Joe Swail took one victory each.
Congratulations to Jamie, although I can’t help but give Peter a special mention as having not shown a great deal of form during the past twelve months, to come into this competition and notch up 10 centuries this season is an impressive effort. It will be interesting to see whether he can repeat this next week in China as he looks to defend his title and importantly, retain his long held place inside the top 16.
More imminently however, tomorrow will see the start of the Championship League winners group and you can follow the scores here at Global Snooker…