Congratulations to Welsh youngster Michael White who has taken his second event victory of the 2009/10 Pontin’s Pro Am Series this weekend…
Once again the event attracted a strong field with professionals such as Ricky Walden, Ken Doherty and Stuart Bingham headlining the draw, perhaps looking to get some practice in ahead of both the Shanghai Masters and second Pro Challenge event.
While Ken and Stuart moved easily into the second round however, for Ricky his stay in the tournament was almost a short one as from 4-1 up he was taken to a deciding frame by Matthew Day. Ultimately though he managed to come through, unlike Dave Harold who suffered a 5-3 defeat to Leeds’ David Grace.
With most of the professionals managing to come through the second round unscathed (though Jamie Cope was a big casualty, losing 5-4 to Andrew Norman), things really got going at the last 16 stage as Michael White passed his first big test. Up against recent Shanghai Masters qualifier Matt Selt, Michael found himself needing a snooker in the deciding frame but having got it, managed to clear to book his place in the last eight. White has said recently how he feels that his tactical game has improved since his last spell on the main tour and perhaps this is a good example of that.
His opponent in the quarter-finals would be Jak Jones, another highly talented Welsh youngster who recorded a brilliant 5-4 win to reach this stage. White’s greater experience was to prove telling however as he came through easily without dropping a frame in what proved to be the most one-sided of the four matches this round. Elsewhere Ricky Walden was defeated by new professional Craig Steadman, while Ken Doherty and Peter Lines also progressed.
With the semi-finals producing comfortable 5-1 victories for both White and Doherty, the two met in what proved to be an excellent final which went one way and then the other. Finding himself 4-2 down, Ken managed to fight back well with a break of 118 to level the match but it was to be White’s day and he duly snatched the match with a break of 90 in the ninth and final frame.
While the final rankings have not yet been updated over at Global Snooker, it is now confirmed that Michael will be the top seed for the Grand Finals in November and it will be interesting to see how he handles that…