July was all about the Australian Open on the snooker
circuit and the moment that I think caught most people was how close Martin
Gould came to winning his first ever ranking event title. Martin Gould is one
of those players who has been knocking on the door for some time. In the top 16
for a portion of his career around 2012 and a losing finalist in the very first
Players Championship Grand Finals, a full ranking event won by Shaun Murphy, he
has certainly come back to form lately.
In March he lost out in the semi-finals of the World Grand
Prix from 5-1 up against the eventual champion Judd Trump and straight after
this he went to the Players Championship grand finals and on this occasion he
made the quarter-finals. So when the new season came along he would have been
confident of achieving some great things.
In his Australian Open first round game he took on the 2013
champion Marco Fu, and came through 5-4 after seeing his 3-0 lead pegged back
to 3-3 in the middle of the match, and after what happened in the World Grand
Prix it would have taken a lot of strength for him to hold it together in that
match rather than just throwing another lead away. To beat a big seed was a
nice first step in his season, and next up was Michael Holt who hadn’t dropped
a frame in beating Gerard Greene in round one. Martin played particularly well
in this match, especially with Michael sticking within a frame of him for most
of the match despite a century and two other breaks of 91 and 93 in the match
from Gould. There was little Holt could do in the end as Martin advanced.
In the quarter-finals he took on another massively improving
player, as Matt Selt was his opponent. I had been singing the praises of Selt a
lot along with many other people in the snooker world over the last few months
and this was certainly an opportunity for him to prove us all right. Martin had
other ideas, despite losing the opening frame of the match. The next two were
tight but once they both went to the Pinner Potter the match took a huge turn
in his favour and this was consolidated with heavy scoring. Runs of 58, 72 and
122 finished off five consecutive frames for a 5-1 win.
When he took Stephen Maguire in the semi-finals, the
Scotsman would certainly have been the favourite for the match. He had just
reached the final of the World Cup with John Higgins who by the time this match
had started was already in the final of this event too and many would have
expected Stephen to join him. Martin though certainly had other ideas. His
performance was magnificent with breaks of 54, 82 and 87 to start off the match
and lead 3-0. From there Maguire had little too offer in response and when a
century was chalked up in the seventh by Gould he had completed a 6-1 victory
and got into his second major final.
It was important, having lost from 5-1 up against Trump in
March, that he completed victory against Stephen hastily and with some class,
which is exactly what he did, but the final itself against Higgins looked like
a totally different prospect with the form John was in, and it would be
important for Martin to get a foothold in the match early on to avoid a heavy
defeat.
He got much more than a foothold when a 4-2 lead was his
during the first session, but once he lost both of the last two frames in
session one to only be level at 4-4, and then lose the first two of session two
to go 6-4 behind it was always an uphill task. Martin fought back though and
forced the decider, and despite the eventual defeat he came a lot closer to
beating Higgins in a major ranking final than many other people had done in previous
years.
Martin Gould could certainly take a lot of pride and
confidence from that run in Australia, and has since made the quarter-finals of
the Shanghai Masters and UK Championship showing that his efforts back in July
were certainly worth it, and by no means a one-off event as he seems to be
getting back towards his best.
To come through as many tough tests as he came through in
Australia and making a major final, just four months after the way in which he
lost the Grand Prix semi-final to miss out on a massive TV final (which would
have been against Ronnie O’Sullivan with £100,000 for the winner) is testament
to Martin’s character and worthy of taking July’s snookering moment of the
month.
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are enjoying a quiet Boxing Day. Tomorrow i'll be back with my August nomination.
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