• MORGAN CLAIMS WORLD MASTERS TITLE


    Darren Morgan reclaimed the IBSF World Masters title that he'd previously won in 2007, beating defending champion Dene O'Kane of New Zealand in a one sided final.


    The two pre-event favourites duly met in the IBSF World Masters final in Hyderabad. But no one could have predicted such a one sided scoreline.


    In all of the first three frames, Welshman Morgan recovered from behind, taking the final red and colours, or a colours clearance to steal the frames.


    It was a different matter in the fourth frame, when O'Kane needed blue to black. A mis-hit safety by Morgan left the blue near the middle pocket and O'Kane played an excellent shot to come right round the table and land perfectly on the pink, which lay in the middle of the top cushion.


    He forced the pink home with power to create the angle to come round for a routine black into the centre pocket.


    But to an amazed gasp from the packed audience at the HICC in Hyderabad, the New Zealander missed the black and handed Morgan a 4-0 interval lead.


    Morgan quickly added the fifth frame and there was no way back for O’Kane after that as Morgan ran out a 6-0 winner.


    Former professional Darren Morgan, now 42 years old, first won the IBSF World Amateur title in 1987 in Bangalore, India. He returned after his professional career to win the IBSF Masters for the first time in Thailand in 2007 and has now regained his title.

    O’Kane had played superbly throughout the event, including a 4-1 semi final win over close neighbour Glen Wilkinson from Australia. But he seemed to have little answer in the final to the all round game of the Welshman.


    O’Kane first won the IBSF Masters title in 2004 in Holland and retained his title in 2005, before winning last year in Austria.

    Malta’s Simon Zammit and Costas Konnaris from Cyprus contested the third place play off in an all Mediterranean clash and Malta prevailed 3-1.


    Cyprus broke the hearts of the Indian hosts when, first, Anthony Brabin knocked Pankaj Advani out of the men’s event and then last night, Konnaris edged out Geet Sethi 4-3 in the Masters.


    Both Zammit and Konnaris were making the step up to Masters for the first time, having represented their countries in the Men’s events previously. But they had no answer in the semi finals to the experience of O’Kane and Morgan, as O’Kane beat Konnaris 5-1 and Morgan beat Zammit 5-0