Moment of the Month: February: Woollaston reaches maiden ranking final

Day 2 of my moment of the month countdown takes us back to February and a particular individual performance from the Welsh Open in Cardiff. Here is all you need to know about the efforts of Ben Woollaston...

My chosen moment of the month in February was of course the surprise finalist at the Welsh Open in Cardiff where Ben Woollaston reached a ranking final for the first time. Coming into the event he was outside of the world’s top 32 and was producing little in terms of the results that he put in during this event.

His tournament started in fairly comfortable fashion, with a 4-2 victory over Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon in a match he was certainly expected to win. Later that day he certainly would have been second favourite for his Last 64 match against Mark Davis. However, Davis only scored a single point in the opening three frames as Ben dominated proceedings. An 80 stopped the rot, but Woollaston went on to win the match and get through to Wednesday’s Last 32 beating Davis 4-1.

In that Last 32 match, he once again would have been a big second favourite taking on another Mark, Northern Irishman Allen this time. Allen’s previous match had actually been refereed by Ben’s biggest snookering supporter, his wife and tournament referee Tatiana. (Something that gets mentioned tirelessly on TV coverage any time that she is refereeing the game in question or if Ben is playing in the TV match). There was never more than a frame in the match, going all the way to the wire after breaks of 77, 68 and 67 from Mark while Ben had waded in with runs of 90 and 61. In the decider Allen didn’t score a point as Woollaston ran out the 4-3 victor and into the Last 16 on the Thursday.

That contest was to be played against another higher seed in Ali Carter, who of course was still playing under the frozen seeding of 13 having undergone treatment for lung cancer just a few months previously. Ali was still favourite and started well by stealing a frame in which Ben had a break of 65. Unfazed the Leicester cueist hit back with consecutive centuries of 103 and 108 to lead 2-1 and that lead was extended to 3-1 as Ali went three frames without scoring a point. Carter’s 61 in the fifth kept him in it, but 51 in the last from Woollaston sealed another superb victory and got him into the quarter-finals over the best-of-9 frames on Friday.

Ben’s quarter-final was the only one not to be televised playing on Friday evening on table two. This was only his second ever full ranking event quarter-final after the 2013 Players Championship finals. However, his opponent on the night was Gary Wilson who had beaten Neil Robertson the round before and had never played a ranking quarter-final. After falling 2-1 behind early, Ben had to hit back and with two breaks in the 50’s he turned it around to lead 3-2 and then pulled away to win the next two and seal a 5-2 win and put himself in the semi-finals of a major ranking tournament for the first time in his career.

That semi-final was a completely different prospect on the Saturday night over the best-of-11 frames against Welsh hero Mark Williams in the one table set-up in Mark’s own back yard. Many would have expected MJW to win the match but it certainly didn’t start off that way as Ben took a 3-1 mid-session interval lead thanks to breaks of 82 and 75. An 88 in the next pulled one back and very soon the match was level and Ben certainly would not have been feeling as good as he did at the break. Undeterred he took the next two to go one away at 5-3, but once more Williams didn’t let him off lightly and was able to force a deciding frame. A contribution of 60 from Woollaston though was the one that really counted and Ben was into his maiden ranking final.

Unfortunately for him and his supporters John Higgins ran riot on the day as you would expect a man of his class to do and Ben was sent packing 9-3.

The important thing for Ben was that he had shown himself that he could cut it at the top level over the course of the week beating some very tough opponents along the way like Allen, Carter and Williams. For me, it was nice to see someone come through from the pack and make their first ever ranking event final. Something that set the precedent for what was to come throughout the rest of the year with Gary Wilson, David Gilbert, Kyren Wilson and Liang Wenbo in particular.

That is why Ben Woollaston’s superb run to the final of the Welsh Open is my moment of the month for February.  

 

That was what February had for us, but March was even better so come back tomorrow and find out what my moment of the month was there.