Sixty of the world’s best players descended on Carlisle last weekend for a major event.
They were contesting World Billiards’ British Open, a level 3 ranking event, played at Cumbria’s premier venue for cue sports, Qzone.
The place was buzzing to have the event, and playing conditions were in great shape after some extensive table revamping.
Amongst the competitors were five times and current world champion Peter Gilchrist, last year’s winner Dave Causier, and ranking event winners including Rob Hall, Peter Sheehan and Darren Clarke, as well as the much anticipated return of ex-professional Robert Marshall after a long lay off.
Local players Dave Midgley, Mark Taylor, John Metcalfe, Mike Griffiths, Paul Whelan and Paul Cowing entered the event, a tall ask against such illustrious company!
Taylor (Southend) and Midgley (Inter Qzone) were drawn together, and indeed the opening match saw the Carlisle pair face off against each other.
In a tense affair, Taylor emerged victorious by 11 points and took an early lead in group C, which contained world number three Rob Hall.
Indeed, Hall won all of his group matches as expected, including wins over both Taylor and Midgley, hitting many centuries and double centuries along the way.
Midgley lost the third game of the group to Ron Bickerdike, and went in as a big underdog against world number 31 Eddie Duggan.
However aided by a little slice of luck along the way, ‘Midge’ ran out a 196-177 victor, his second win in a ranking event!
Taylor and Midgley finished joint fourth in their group with one win each, a fine achievement!
In Group B, Paul Whelan (Annan) started in slightly disappointing fashion in losing to Eddie Fielding 133-191, but quickly made amends by beating a classy opponent in Darren Kell 212-194.
No one outside a handful of people in the world can give Dave Causier a game, but Whelan ended the group by winning 201-185 against eventual Challenge Cup winner, and world championship last 16 player Ian Dennis, a fine achievement!
With three players having two wins each, the group went to countback, and Darren Kell qualified with a points difference of -82, Eddie Fielding claiming third with -559 and sadly Whelan finishing fourth with -609.
Group D had Carlisle’s best recent performer in ranking events, Paul Cowing, competing against ranking event winner Peter Sheehan, and world number 28 David Gillingham against others.
Cowing had won six of his last nine ranking event matches, including reaching the last 32 on the Scottish Open in January, but had a tougher time this time.
.A 148-241 opening defeat against Gillingham put Cowing up against it, and a 179-214 reverse against Stephen Kershaw followed by the 628-152 loss against the aforementioned Sheehan meant Cowing couldn’t qualify
But he showed his quality and resolve by winning his final match, a terrific score of 350-111 meaning Cowing finished third in his group! A fine effort indeed!
Mike Griffiths faced the group of death, with ex-professionals Robert Marshall and Darren Clark, world number six, looking red hot favourites to qualify from group F.
However, the Carlisle cueman started off in red hot fashion, winning 297-143 against Elfet Smith after being 50 behind early on, and followed it up by beating world number 66 and Scotland international Mark Lennox 244-190, including breaks of 61, 51 and 48.
A 47 break from Clarke’s break-off put the world number six under pressure, and Griffiths forged an 80-27 advantage.
However, the former Jersey Open winner had other ideas, and a quickfire 91 break followed by another 46 break put Clark in charge.
Griffiths rallied, but fell short, losing 190-240, not a bad effort at all!
It meant Griffiths could qualify with a win over ex-pro Robert Marshall, but Marshall was confident after beating Clark and despite Griffiths scoring 203, which would have been enough to win six of the other eight final matches, Marshall’s 360 total was insurmountable!
Griffiths finished third in group F, behind the two ex-professionals.
John Metcalfe was drawn in group H alongside world number eight Chris Coumbe.
Every group in a ranking event is tough, and indeed it proved to be for Metcalfe, who despite a fantastic effort in all his matches, eventually went down to Roy Denson (182-139), world number 20 Mark Hirst (375-53), Chris Coumbe (308-115) and finally Anthony Brown (170-160).
So, despite some fine efforts and some awesome victories, all the local players were knocked out in the group stage.
The rest of the tournament ran very smoothly and some high quality was on show all through.
Robert Marshall knocked in a 287 break along the way to a quarter final berth, before being beaten by world champion Peter Gilchrist.
Gilchrist himself lost in the semi final to Rob Hall.
In the other half, Southampton’s John Mullane got to his second semi final since lockdown after a fine run, but came up against the irresistible force that is Dave Causier.
Causier won the event in dominant fashion in the final, a very one sided score of 1121-138 over Hall to retain his British Open title.
Rob Hall had the highest break of the competition with a wonderful knock of 463 on table 15.
All scores are available at wbeventsonline.com, and some matches can be viewed on the world billiards Youtube channel.
