Pro Snooker Blog

Name: Martin Gould

DOB: September 14th, 1981

Nationality: English

Turned Pro: 1999

Highest Ranking: #43 (2010/11)

Current Ranking: #43

Highest Break: 137 (2003 World Championship)

Career Highlights: 2002 & 2007 English Amateur Champion, 2009 Welsh Open Last 16, 2008 UK Championship last 32, 2007 Northern Ireland Trophy last 32, 2002 European Championship semi-final

Career Summary

Martin first came to the attention of snooker fans when he won the first of his two English Amateur titles in 2002, before topping the Challenge Tour in 2002-3 to earn a place on the main tour. Unfortunately though his year was to be without success and having finished 106th in the rankings, lost his status after just one season.

Having not enjoyed success Martin actually gave up the game for four years, but in 2007 returned to again capture the English Amateur crown and then go on to beat David Grace in the EASB play-offs. This ensured that he was back on the professional circuit for 2007/8 and this time around things were to go much better. Good runs at the UK and World Championships, as well as the Northern Ireland Trophy ensured that he just got himself into the all-important top 64 spots and not only retained his place on the tour as a result, be ensured that he would come into the draw a round later in 2008/9.

2008/9

Global Snooker

The 2008/9 season did not start quite so well for Martin but things picked up at the UK Championship where he defeated Supoj Saenla, Tom Ford and Dominic Dale to qualify for the final stages in Telford. There he came up against eventual winner Shaun Murphy and though he went down 9-7, he gave him a real scare and looked like he might cause an upset at one point.

At the Welsh Open though he was to go one better as having qualified with wins over Matt Selt, John Parrott and Nigel Bond before defeating seven-times world champion Stephen Hendry to reach the last 16 of an event for the first time.

Though he lost out in the next round to eventual finalist Joe Swail, he had recorded probably the biggest win of his career and with further victories over David Gilbert and Matthew Stevens in the World Championship qualifiers, he ensured that he would also play at the Crucible Theatre for the first time.

Sadly for Martin his debut match against Mark Allen proved to be something of a disappointment as he went down 10-6, but he at least did enough to move up into the top 48 of the rankings for the first time and give himself one less qualifying match to negotiate.

2009/10

Martin at the 2010 World Championship qualifiers

The first half  of 2009/10 proved to be tough for Martin as he won just one match from the first three ranking events and saw the momentum that he had built up during the start of the year run dry.

Further opening round defeats at the Welsh and China Open tournaments increased the pressure upon Martin significantly as he headed to the World Championship qualifiers, but there he was able to turn things around with victories against Bjorn Haneveer and Nigel Bond to qualify for the Crucible for the second successive year.