Championship League: Late arrival Woollaston wins Group 6

Ben Woollaston was a late arrival for Group 6 after Ronnie O'Sullivan withdrew from the group after losing the Group 5 final on Tuesday night, but he certainly made the most of it just as Matt Selt did in Group 2, by coming through the pack to win the group and book his Winners Group place alongside Barry Hawkins, Matt Selt, Ali Carter, Stuart Bingham and Mark Davis.

Ben Woollaston didn't even look like qualifying for the semi-finals after day one and things looked even less likely as he needed a 3-0 victory against Peter Ebdon who was already into the semi-finals, in the final match of the round robin stages. He managed to get that 3-0 win though and made it into 4th place just ahead of Fergal O'Brien who went winless in his two games on Thursday. Meanwhile, it was Rod Lawler and Kurt Maflin who were relegated as Rod could only manage one win in total, coming on Thursday while Maflin couldn't add to his one win from four from Wednesday which would've disappointed him. Meanwhile, David Gilbert and Dominic Dale got two wins from their last three group games to move onto four points, while one from his final two was enough for Peter Ebdon to do the same.

David Gilbert ended up topping the group on frames won so went through to play Ben Woollaston in the semi's and Ben looked in trouble early on finding himself 1-0 down in the match and 60-0 behind in the second frame before coming back to win that frame by a point and that was the killer blow as he took the next two frames of the match to win it 3-1 and get into the group final. Meanwhile, Peter Ebdon made a century on his way from recovering from a poor start against Dominic Dale to win that match 3-1 and produce a final that was a repeat of the round-robin whitewash that got Ben into the semi-finals just a few hours before. This time around the standard wasn't quite as great as both players struggled, but it was Woollaston who had the best of things and he won the match 3-0 to win Group 6 in incredibly unlikely fashion. Here's a complete round-up from the notepad of Thursday's results and the final group 6 table:

The Championship League gets a break now as next week sees the German Masters in Berlin, but when it comes back on February 9th it should be John Higgins, Mark Williams, Xiao Guodong, Peter Ebdon, Fergal O'Brien, David Gilbert and Dominic Dale battling it out for the final spot in the Winners Group, which is on the 11th and 12th of February.