Any excuse to post this photo again (click here for the updated provisional seedings)
Congratulations to Welshman Dominic Dale who tonight came back from the brink (in fact does needing three snookers count as beyond the brink?), to win the latest PTC event at the Academy in Sheffield with a 4-3 victory against the ever-improving Martin Gould. Click below for more…
Both players who have made strong starts to this season, particularly in the PTC events, Dominic Dale and Martin Gould reached their first final of the season today and judging by the livescores (mercifully working, albeit without the reds remaining on the table feature), it was to prove predictably tense.
At 3-3 however it looked as though having seen Dominic make just 16 from his first chance, a break of 69 from Gould would be enough to secure him victory as the scoreboard stood at 70-16 in favour of the Pinner Potter.
Dale though had other ideas and coming back to the table, got himself back into the frame before eventually coming through to complete a brilliant win from behind and win his first professional title since the 2007 Shanghai Masters.
EDIT: His comeback was actually even better than I had realised as according to Snooker Scene Blog he had actually needed three snookers in that deciding frame which he got before clearing the table to secure victory! An incredible result.
And while I’m posting amusing photos…
Only this week I was chatting to Dom at the opening of the Southwest Snooker Academy about his season and as he pointed out to me, he had already played well during the PTC events this season, earning over 4,000 points from them and reaching the semi-finals of the fourth event. Now however he has gone even better and gained a further 2,000 points, a useful amount as he is actually defending a fair few points heading into the next cut-off following his run to the quarter-finals of the Bahrain Championship back in 2008.
For Martin Gould it is another result that will be hard to take following his defeat at the hands of Neil Robertson at the Crucible back in April but he should nevertheless be encouraged by his extremely consistent results so far this season and that fact that he is now up to 20th in my latest provisional seedings list. Having seen how well he took that defeat to Robertson and did not let it affect his form, I think that he will only continue to improve now.
Next up, EPTC3!