So the final matches of this season’s Q School have now been completed and the four to make it through to the main tour are Kurt Maflin, David Gilbert, Stuart Carrington and Adam Duffy. Click below for more…
Final Round Results
Kurt Maflin 4-1 Martin O’Donnell
20-62 (53), 67 (66)-1, 86 (86)-17, 128 (128)-0, 86 (85)-12
David Gilbert 4-1 Allan Taylor
70 (51)-12, 86-20, 87(87)-1, 6-84 (84), 78 (61)-24
Adam Duffy 4-2 David Gray
85 (67)-32, 45-8, 6-67 (67), 13-64, 30-60, 27-63
Stuart Carrington 4-2 Stephen Craigie
95 (66)-1, 34-64, 126 (83)-0, 0-62, 59-45, 84 (50)-49
First man through to the main tour this morning was Kurt Maflin who completed an excellent week in fine style by recording a 4-1 victory against Martin O’Donnell. It was in fact Martin who made the stronger start, taking the opener with a break of 53 but thereafter he was to score just a further 30 points as Maflin turned the screw with runs of 128, 86, 85 and 66.
It was this level of consistent heavy scoring that took Kurt all the way to Beijing just a couple of months ago and made him one of the favourites to retain his tour card via the Q School. Can he maintain this standard throughout the course of next season? Following this victory he told World Snooker that he is considering moving back to the UK permanently in order to help his game and it will be interesting to see if he can do that.
Another player who has regained his spot on the tour today is David Gilbert who hit breaks of 87, 61 and 51 en route to a relatively comfortable win against Allan Taylor. Having lost during the final round of the previous two events, David will be relieved to have come through this time and has commented afterwards that he has taken snooker for granted in recent years and having temporarily lost his tour card, has now rediscovered his love for the game. Having turned professional a decade ago, could the best of Gilbert bet yet to come?
While those two names will be familiar to most people however, the other two qualifiers will perhaps not be as Adam Duffy and Stuart Carrington secured spots on the tour for the first time in their careers.
Stuart as I have commented on a few times during the past couple of weeks is a strong amateur who has come close to qualifying for the main tour a few times in recent seasons. He has also defeated a string of professionals players in recent times during the PTC events so I am not particularly surprised to see him come through as one of the 12 qualifiers from the Q School. Opponent Stephen Craigie is another player with a strong junior record but as he lost the last two frames today it was not to be and he will have to wait a little longer to join his brother Sam on the main tour.
Adam Duffy meanwhile is a player who you may remember best for being the recipient of the Paul Hunter Scholarship during the 2008/9 season, though until now he has struggled to convert his promise into qualification for the professional circuit. That all changed today however as he recorded an excellent win against former ranking event winner David Gray to step up to the main tour.
So that brings the inaugural Q School to a close and with many of next season’s tour players now confirmed, I will begin work on their new player profiles in due course.