At the end of the 2014/2015 snooker season Tom Ford was
ranked in 59th position. Had he have lost in the first round of
World Championship qualifying he would more than likely have dropped off of the
professional tour and been forced to drop back to £0 in the ranking list, more
than likely taking a tour card from his position in the Asian Order of Merit
list. As it was, he took two wins in World Championship qualifying and was able
to propel himself high enough to avoid any of that and start the next season as
normal.
Who would have thought though, that in his first European
Tour event of the season he would make it all the way to the final of the
event? Not many would be an accurate answer. However, when the Riga Open came
around at the very beginning of August that was exactly what he managed to do.
It never really looked like he would either. Over the course
of the six matches he was on the right side of to make the final, four of those
went to deciders. The only convincing win he had was in the semi-finals.
Starting off against an amateur qualifier Jamie Rhys Clark,
he was forced to win the last two frames and in the end he won the decider by
only 5 points. Perhaps that was the kick that Tom Ford to find his best form
because he was very nearly sent packing early on by a player he would expect to
beat on most occasions.
From here on in the draw was much tougher for Tom and after
his early showings I didn’t expect him to get too far. Against Joe Perry he
managed to beat someone who had a break of 84 in the first frame, and then
followed in with consecutive centuries of 104 and 108 to come from 3-1 to 3-3.
Tom though in his four frames won compiled breaks of 56, 57, 58 and 63. The
standard was terrific and very much as it had to be to get through. That would
be another confidence boosting win, knowing that he has just beaten someone who
has scored outstandingly.
One final match had to be played on Fords opening day if he
was to make it through to the Last 16 on Sunday. The match was very close once
again and from 2-2 he made breaks of 63, a 50 in losing frame six but then in
the decider was his highest break of his three matches played on the day, a 127
to win it. Timing is one of the biggest parts of snooker, being able to time it
so your best form comes out when you really need it is the sign of class and
Ford managed exactly that there.
Coming back on the Sunday he played Rory McLeod in the Last
16. Most of the time against Rory you get a huge battle, and this match was no
different as a drawn out affair ensued. It was a pretty scrappy affair and the
only break of any note was a 73 in frame four to put himself 3-1 ahead. That
was a key point as it was a tight match, and to clinch the match in frame six
he took the frame on the black for a 4-2 win. Those tight games are the sort of
games that Ford would have lost many of in the past. His temperament has always
been questioned and perhaps it could be said that he doesn’t always have the
patience to get embroiled in a fight.
The game against Matt Selt would have followed the one with
Rory almost immediately so there was very little time to re-group. He was on
the back foot straight away thanks to a 118 from Matt. A key juncture was that
of frame three when Ford stole the frame on the black after a 56 break earlier
in the frame from his opponent. When Ford nipped in front 3-2 after a
contribution of 59, Matthew hit back with an 82 to force the decider. In that
decider Selt made a break of 58 and was looking set to win, but he gave an
opening to Ford and he took it with both hands with a 57 to win the match and
get himself into the semi-finals.
In that semi-final with Ben Woollaston he was playing
another player from Leicester which can sometimes make things hard if you get
on well, and coming from the same area you would expect that they have seen a
lot of each other in competition. The match ended up going Ford’s way 4-1, but
that doesn’t tell the story of how many chances Ben appeared to have in the
match, and that is shown from the fact that at 3-1 ahead Tom had only scored 3
more points in the entire match than Ben had. Sometimes this is the kind of
luck that you need to get through, and the sort of luck that he wasn’t having
in the last year or so to end up getting into a battle for tour survival at the
end of the previous season.
The final didn’t turn out the way he would have wanted
losing out 4-1 to Barry Hawkins, but Ford already achieved a lot more than he
would have expected to at the start of the weekend. Making the final gave him
£9,000 in prize money and guaranteed him a place in the Players Championship
Finals later in the season which guarantees him more money to add to his
ranking.
Any threats that were on Tom’s tour place this season were
extinguished by the second event of the season and that will take a huge weight
off of his shoulders and security for quite a while ahead. That is why it is
such an important moment and one certainly worthy of August’s moment of the
month nomination.
Be sure to return tomorrow to find out the nomination for September.
No comments:
Post a Comment