Judd’s Late Surge Not Enough to Trump Woolaston
Leicester’s Ben Woollaston held on for an impressive win in the first ONEFORSEVEN satellite evening in Chester, despite a late surge from Judd Trump in the final round.
It looked as though the 22-year-old had done enough, holding a 90-point over the Bristol-born Trump with one round to go.
Trump and Dave Harold both needed to score heavily and hope that Jamie Cope kept Woollaston to a low final round score.
Judd made the first move against Harold potting a red and a pink, before laying a good snooker. Harold escaped the snooker but left Judd in amongst the reds.
Twenty-year-old Trump scored quickly and as he passed the century mark with one red remaining, he wandered across to look at Woollaston’s score.
After taking the last red with a blue and all the colours for a superb 133 break, he posted a total of 558.
That meant Woollaston needed to score 51 or more to secure his place at the ONEFORSEVEN Final Tables in December.
As the tension built, unforced errors started to creep in and with the 21-minute time limit ticking away, these were edgy moments for Ben and his supporters.
He eventually found a good pot on the last red and followed with a blue giving good position on the yellow and sealed his first place finish with a final total of 585.
Earlier in the day, Norwich’s Barry Pinches has smashed the ONEFORSEVEN scoring record with a massive 660 in group one.
An impressive series of frame scores [95,61,136,130,114,93 ,31] took him past the previous best of 611.
With the top four from each group progressing to the final group, Pinches was joined by Jamie Cope, Michael Holt and Harold, who scraped into the fourth spot by just two points after a poor start saw him record successive zero scores rounds two and three.
In the second group, eventual winner, Woollaston eased into the final group in first place followed by Andrew Higginson, Trump and Daniel Wells.
Fifteen-year-old Richard Remelie was the youngest player in the competition and almost took the scalp of Trump losing by just one point in round four.
Pinches told Global-Snooker.com “I think this is a great format. My game is not perfectly suited to such an attacking style of play, but I went for shots today that I wouldn’t normally go for and I got them, I was delighted with beating the record”.
This is the first top level ONEFORSEVEN and the overall attitude of the players was a resounding thumbs up.
The leader-board is constantly changing with players able to leap-frog themselves into contention or drop out of contention in the blink of an eye.
“This could be exactly what snooker needs to generate new interest, it is more exciting” Higginson said.
Harold commented “This is an excellent competition. It was exciting until the very end. I think Oneforseven is here to stay”.
Woollaston is the first name in the draw for the £25,000 ONEFORSEVEN WALES 2009 on December 21 in Cardiff. He will be joined by the winners of seven further Satellite Events plus eight invited players, who will be announced this week.
To buy tickets to ONEFORSEVEN WALES 2009 – contact Ticketline UK on 02920230130 or visit www.ticketlineuk.com
