Michael Holt has taken his second PTC title this evening with a 4-1 victory against Welshman Dominic Dale in Sheffield. The win lifts him up 37th in the latest projected seedings and up into the top eight of the PTC Order of Merit, while Dale also climbs into the top 24…
Michael Holt has taken his second career PTC title this evening with a 4-2 victory against Dominic Dale. Fast out of the blocks to take a 2-0 lead with breaks of 75 and 58, Holt moved into a 2-0 advantage from which he never really looked like faltering. Dale refused to give up and reduced his arrears to 1-2 and then 2-3, but Holt was not to be denied and soon got over the line in frame six.
An excellent result for Holt, the win earns him £10,000 as well as moving him up to 7th in the latest PTC Order of Merit. Furthermore the 2,000 ranking points earned are surprisingly enough to see him climb eight places to 37th in the latest projected seedings, demonstrating just how tight it is in that section of the rankings.
Earlier in the day, John Higgins had won the eagerly anticipated clash of the last two world champions with a 4-3 victory against Neil Robertson at the last 16 stage, but the Scot was eventually to lose out to Holt at the semi-final stages.
The race for the top 32 ended up as something of a stalemate as Ken Doherty and Rory McLeod both lost out at the last 16 stage while the impressive runs of David Grace and Chris Norbury were brought to an end by Dave Harold and Jamie Cope respectively.
It was another good day for Stephen Lee as the four-time ranking event winner strengthened his position inside the top 16 with a semi-final run before losing out to Dominic Dale, while Liang Wenbo got some important points on the board with a quarter-final appearance.
With two maximum breaks within the first three days it has been a high quality event in Sheffield but in truth many of the top players can be forgiven for perhaps having at least one eye on the upcoming UK Championship in York which begins this Saturday. One point of interest is that with two quarter-finals and a semi-final from his past three PTCs now, is John Higgins now playing his way into form ahead of the big one. Time will tell.