August in the snooker world is very much a part of the early
stages in the new season. The main action was at the European Tour events, with
particular focus on the incredibly special Paul Hunter Classic in Furth. One
man stood out for his performances there and the context of it all and that of
course was Ali Carter.
When he came to the Paul Hunter Classic he had just lost his
qualifying match for the Shanghai Masters to low ranked David Grace. Of course
for Ali, the start of the season was when his seeding came out of the “frozen”
status that he had been granted for the 2014/2015 after his diagnosis with lung
cancer and the treatment that he had to receiver during the early parts of that
season. This put him down to 29 in the world at the start of the season so he
needed things to start going his way if he was to climb back to where he
belongs.
When he turned up in Furth he set his stall out early and
was pretty flawless on the opening day beating amateur qualifier Elliot Slessor
4-0, Aditya Mehta 4-1 with breaks of 105, 67 and 87 after losing the opening
frame and he closed out the day with a 4-0 win against Chinese Li Hang which
included runs of 69, 74 and 56 and saw Li only score 24 points in the match.
That is the sort of stylish performance you need on the
opening day of a European Tour event, so Ali certainly set an example there
with some good scoring and three easy victories to save his energy for the
tougher tests that would lie ahead on Sunday.
Starting off in the Last 16 he played Jimmy Robertson and it
was a tricky match with Jimmy in the middle but the damage was done early, runs
of 86 and 112 helping him into an early 3-0 lead before eventually winning 4-2.
That set up a quarter-final with Mark Williams. Mark was
going along nicely despite recent surgery on his shoulder and had made the Last
16 of the Riga Open so it was going to be another tough fixture. Williams was
also off to a great start leading 2-0 as Carter possibly struggled to settle
down, with this being his first TV match of the weekend. Mark had chances in
each of the next four frames, but as Ali found his feet he lost all of them to
50+ breaks from his opponent. The highlights were a run of 81 in the third
frame and a 71 break in the fifth as he went on to win 4-2 for the second time
today.
As he reached the last four, Michael Holt awaited as his
opponent and Michael had been going along nicely having just started working
with Terry Griffiths. The match was very much a tight one, and after stealing
the second frame after a break of 57 from Holty, it looked like Carter could
take control. That wasn’t the case though as the Hitman dominated the next two
frames to level up at 2-2. The next two frames were very close and the match
itself was drawn out as it continued after Shaun Murphy had come from 3-0 down
to beat Mark King 4-3 in the televised semi-final which had started at the same
time as this one. Ali went on to win two very close frames and win the match
4-2, despite the fact that he had scored 17 less points that Michael in the
overall match.
In the final it was his good friend Shaun Murphy that stood
between him and the title, just as it had been when Carter won the invitational
Hong Kong General Cup final in October 2014 in his first event since having
treatment for the lung cancer. On this occasion it was just as close. Carter
started with 62, but Murphy hit back with a 72 to level the match at 1-1.
Carter took the next two to lead 3-1 in the match. Murphy won the next with an
83 and took the sixth on the black to force a deciding frame. In the decider
the first chance went to Murphy but he missed a pink to the middle and the rest
was history as Carter waded in with a 95 to win and take the Paul Hunter
Classic title.
When you consider that the event is named in the memory of
Paul Hunter who died of cancer, I and most of the snooker world will agree in
this belief that there is no more fitting winner for the title than the man
that has twice had cancer and come through, and for a year on from receiving
cancer treatment, to win a title carrying ranking importance is a simply
enormous effort. Therefore, there is absolutely no doubting that August’s
player of the month should be Ali Carter.
Just four more nominees to be announced before we find out who my Player of 2015 is. September will be the next announcement tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment