Pro Snooker Blog

Name: Fergal O’Brien

DOB: March 8th, 1972

Nationality: Irish

Turned Pro: 1991

Highest Ranking: #9 (2000/1)

Current Ranking: #47

Highest Break: 143 (1991 Masters)

Career Highlights: 1999 British Open Champion, 2001 Masters Finalist, 2007 Northern Ireland Trophy Finalist, Three Times Ranking Event Semi-Finalist

Website: http://fergalobrien.ie/

In short

Coming up to twenty years as a professional, Fergal remains one of the grittiest, hardest match players on the tour and is still capable of going deep in a tournament as he showed in the 2007 Northern Ireland Trophy.

Professional career

Turning pro in the summer of 1991, Fergal enjoyed an impressive debut season, qualifying for the last 128 of three events and ending it with a ranking of 192. These results gave him a decent platform to build on during his second season when he made the last 16 of an event for the first time at the Asian Open, beating six-times world champion Steve Davis along the way.

His next few seasons were steady without being too spectacular, moving slowly up the rankings and making his first ranking event quarter-final at the 1995 Grand Prix before losing to the number one player Stephen Hendry.

It was to be 1997/8 where his results were really to step up however as he reached the semi-finals of a ranking event for the first time at the Scottish Open. As well as this he won his first match at the World Championship with a dramatic 10-9 win over James Wattana and so moved up to a new high of 20 in the rankings.

Fergal in action during the final of the 2001 B&H Masters

British Open Champion

Now a consistent face in the latter stages of events, it seemed only a matter of time until he would make a breakthrough to the elite top 16 for the first time. He sealed his place there at the 1999 British Open where having defeated John Higgins and Peter Ebdon in close matches, Fergal then beat Anthony Hamilton 9-7 in the final to win his first (and so far only), ranking event title.

Following this he was to remain in the top 16 for three consecutive years though he rarely threatened to win a second ranking trophy. The highlight of this period was to come at the invitational Benson and Hedges Masters where he beat Mark Williams, Ken Doherty and Dave Harold to reach the final. Despite leading Paul Hunter 7-3 however, it was the man from Leeds who would go on to win the match, 10-9 following an epic match.

Dip in form

Fergal took a long time to recover from this result as he struggled to win matches and at the end of the 2001/2 season he lost his place in the top 16. Results did not improve in 2002/3 as he won only four matches and surprisingly dropped out of the top 32, unthinkable given his results a couple of years earlier.

Resurgence

Things were not to pick up for Fergal until several years later at the 2007 Northern Ireland Trophy when he amazingly reached his second ranking event final, beating Ronnie O’Sullivan along the way. Although he lost heavily to Stephen Maguire in the final, he had done enough to move back into the top 32 and restore some confidence that had been lacking in recent times.

After his strong 2007/8 showing though, the following season was to be a disaster as he managed to win just three matches all season and slipped seven places down the rankings as a result, though he just about hung on to a place in the top 32. Down in 48th place on the one-year rankings though, he will require a much stronger season in 2009/10 if he is to remain there.

2009/10

The first half of 2009/10 continued to be a frustrating time for Fergal as he lost his opening match in all three of the ranking events staged, though this statement does not nearly tell the story.

His first came against a returning to form Ken Doherty in the Shanghai Masters in a match that lasted for four hours and ten minutes before Doherty eventually prevailed. The conclusion in particular was painful as having needed four snookers, Fergal actually got three of them before he fouled himself and Ken potted brown and blue to book his last 32 place.

Then what followed against Matt Selt in the Grand Prix qualifiers was another epic in which Fergal notched breaks of 113, 93 and 87 before losing 5-3! Another close defeat followed against Rory McLeod in the UK Championship qualifiers but he was finally to break his duck at the Welsh Open qualifiers before he also qualified for the China Open and World Championship to ensure that he would just hang on to a top 48 place at the end of the season, despite dropping 16 places down the rankings.

Ranking Event wins (1)