Barceló Daventry Hotel
Sedgemoor Way
Daventry
Northamptonshire
NN11 0SG
United Kingdom
www.gb9balltour.com
www.cuesport.tv
www.belleza-photography.co.uk
Friday/Saturday/Sunday 18-20 November 2011
Jayson Shaw, Craig Osborne & Darryn Walker - Main, Pro & Challenge winners.
Photography courtesy & copyright of ©Andrew Warden, www.belleza-photography.co.uk
The 2011 GB9 British Grand Prix, Pro Cup V, & Challenge Cup V
The 2011 GB9 season has come to its conclusion with Jayson Shaw, Craig Osborne and Darryn Walker coming away with the final spoils of the year. With this being the final event of the season, and indeed with just under three months until the 2012 season is due to begin, this was the last chance of the year to soak up the atmosphere that GB9 creates until the curtain rises again in February.
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STROLL IN THE PARK FOR WALKER
Former snooker professional Darryn Walker took his maiden final berth at a GB9. His progression to the final began with a 9-6 win over Jaspal Bamotra in the last 64, and after this a demolition job of Ryan Fleming with a 9-1 victory saw him comfortably into the last 16. 9-4 was the score-line against Finlay Laing in his next encounter, but his sternest test of the tournament came in March's Challenge Cup winner - Damian Massey who took Walker all the way. But it was the man from Birmingham who denied the Pro Cup-bound Massey his third Challenge final of a quite brilliant season, deafeting the Omen 9-8 and booking his place in a second successive semi-final. Jack Whelan was his opponent in the semi-finals, himself looking to book a spot in his second final of the season. It wasn’t to be, however, with Walker claiming his first final berth with a 9-5 victory over the Derbyshire youngster.
Joining him in the final was English pool hotshot Craig Waddingham. His ranking ensured he started one round sooner than Walker, but a 9-0 annihilation of James Lawless soon made that a thing of the past. The last 64 saw the end of Jonny Cooper’s campaign who stared straight down a 9-4 defeat. Like Walker, it was in the quarter-finals that Waddingham’s sternest challenge was waiting. Another Yorkshire youngster in Sam Hirst gave everything in his game, but still it was Waddingham that came through to the semi-finals 9-8. The only thing more tiresome than coming out of a hill-hill encounter is finding yourself straight in another one. This time it was Chris Hall looking to qualify for his first final of the season, but it was the Scunthorpe shooter who saw Hall off with another 9-8 scoreline to ensure his place in 2011’s final Challenge Cup final.
In the final, it quickly looked as though the toil of 34 consecutive racks was taking its toll on Waddingham, and Walker quickly asserted a lead, which proved ultimately to be unassailable. He saw out the match 9 racks to 5, and earned a thoroughly deserved promotion to the Pro Cup for next season alongside his quarter final victim Damian Massey, with Mat Lawrenson and Andrew Morris taking the other automatic promotion spots.
DOUBLE BARREL SHOTGUN CAN'T STOP SHOOTING
Coming into the Pro Cup, the provisional British rankings made Imran Majid and Craig Osborne the two highest ranked players in the country. It was little surprise, therefore, that it was these two players who ended up contesting the last Pro Cup Final of the season. With Majid and Osborne also sitting pretty at second and third in the Pro Cup rankings respectively, each began their campaign in the last 16 of the competition.
Majid's first victim on Friday evening was Adam Shaw, the Wirral potter bravely fighting but ultimately succumbing to the Maharaja 9-6. The quarter finals saw Scottish hopes of the Pro Cup title end when Michael Valentine was knocked out by a score of 9-5. In the semi-finals Majid went one rack better again, with 2011 Southern Masters champion Kevin Uzzell falling at the penultimate hurdle by 9 racks to 4. This result saw Majid into his fourth final in all competitions this season – a quite staggering achievement in the ever more difficult world of GB9.
Osborne appeared to adopt the attitude that steered him towards the Northern Masters title back in August to start his campaign. Luke Rollison was the Suffolk man's first victim in the last 16, leaving the competition with a 9-2 defeat. James Kay suffered an identical scoreline at the hands of Ozzy in the quarter finals. Young prodigy Phil Burford was looking to end this 2011 GB9 season the way he made it begin, but his quest fell apart at the penultimate hurdle. 9-4 was the scoreline in favour of Osborne, and with it his third final of the 2011 season was upon him.
Despite Majid being docked a rack prior to the final for illegal practicing between matches, both players saw out what was a final of tremendous quality and it was unfortunate that there had to be a runner-up. On this occasion, and indeed for the fourth time this season, that happened to be Imran Majid – Craig Osborne held his nerve to win the fifth and final Pro Cup of the season and a second gold medal to add to his Northern Masters victory back in August. Both players consolidate their positions in the top 4 of the Pro Cup rankings going into next season.
WIZARD SPELLS THE END OF SEASON CLIMAX
Just as the final divisional tournaments of the season were coming to an end, along came the opening gambits in the weekend’s main event – the British Grand Prix. The event was certainly a grand affair, with the new GB9Live scoring system given a debut trial run before being rolled out as standard for the 2012 GB9 season.
The first player to book his place in the final was Scotland’s Jayson Shaw. Already having one gold, two silver and three bronze medals from this season, he was looking to add one more to the gold tally before the season came to a close. He started with a defeat of outgoing GB9 Chairperson Jonathan Mathers, a 9-6 win spelling the end of his season. This set off a ruthless streak in Shaw’s game which saw Robin Cripps’ campaign come hurtling back down to earth, going down 9-1 to the Glaswegian. Shane Appleton, out in the last 16 of the Pro Cup on the Saturday morning, also left the British Grand Prix at the last 16 stage – a resounding 9-2 sealing Shaw’s place in the quarter finals. The quarter-final and semi-final matches saw him come up against both the Northern Masters and Southern Masters champions. First to take up the gauntlet was September’s champion Kevin Uzzell, who was hoping to extend his ongoing run of GB9 main event victories to ten. After his 11-4 defeat to Uzzell last time around however, Shaw was adamant on revenge – a 9-7 victory was enough then to see him into the semi-finals. This score-line was repeated in the semi-finals, where Craig Osborne’s own eight match winning streak across the weekend came to an end. Shaw had fought his way into his fourth final of the season and was in no mind to stop there.
Imran Majid’s season has been one of sheer consistency right from the beginning of the season in March. Only he had more medals around his neck than Shaw – four silver and four bronze - coming into this tenth and final competition of the season. That one gold medal of the season was eluding him, however, and knowing this was his final chance of the season to strike gold he took no chances in eliminating Mark Hughes in the last 64 by a 9-2 score-line. Craig Dixon soon followed in the last 32, with the man from Hemsworth heading home 9 racks to 3. Majid matched this scoreline against Neil Margossian, who saw a terrific season come to a close with a defeat to the same score. A different game altogether on paper at least was waiting for him in the quarter-finals, as the darling child of Darlington Phil Burford came up against the Maharaja. Burford’s heroics in this season’s Midlands Classic weren’t to be repeated, however, as Majid eased to a 9-4 victory and sealed his ninth semi-final of the season. Here he met European number 2 Chris Melling in a repeat of this season’s Paul Medati Trophy final – a player who will be spearheading Europe's bid in December's Mosconi Cup in Las Vegas and was only playing his third GB9 weekend of the season through other international commitments. This ended up being a homecoming to forget, however, with a heartbreaking 9-8 defeat seeing Majid through to final of 2011 – a victory which meant that he would play a part in half of the ten finals in the Pro Cup and main events combined.
The final itself was, perhaps, surprisingly one-sided. The drive for gold simply didn’t turn up for Majid in the final and, for the fifth time in five finals, he saw himself on the wrong end of the scoreboard. Jayson Shaw roared home to an 11-4 victory, sealed his place as British ranked number 2 and took home the final gold medal of 2011. Congratulations must go to Imran as well, who consolidated his provisional ranking as British number one and ensured he will retain that as his official ranking for the 2012 season.
As well as all the winners over the weekend special mention must also go to CueSport.TV, who rounded off a fantastic season of live streaming coverage of GB9 tour spots with another superb production from the event. Thanks goes to Pete and Angie Williams, from all the GB9 team, who encourage everyone to tune into CueSport.TV to watch GB9 , as well as a multitude of other Cue Sport action at www.cuesport.tv
So, that is it from GB9 for 2011 and indeed for this fourth season of the tour. Every tour player will be hard at work over the Christmas period looking to sharpen up their games for the start of the 2012 season in February, and many new 9-ball players will be gearing themselves up for the new season's qualification tournaments taking place in January. Full details of the qualifiers are available at www.gb9balltour.com, in the meantime GB9 would like to thank its fans across Great Britain itself, the continent and indeed the world, for their continued support of the tour. We hope you've enjoyed every rack of this season and look forward to seeing you once again in February.
