CueSport TV - The Blog

Whilst out in the Isle of Man I didn’t really have chance to catch up with the goings on all over the world in terms of Cue Sports.

Last week there was a lot of action with some fantastic results for the sport.

The first one is Ricky Walden’s first World Ranking title in defeating Ronnie O’Sullivan 10-8 in the Shanghai Masters last Sunday. This is great news for the 25-year-old Walden, who we caught up with in winning the Belgium Open the week before. It looks like a solid move in the right direction for the Chester born world number 35, and this win has put him provisionally at number 17. Kicking on for the rest of the season will be his priority and a spot in the elite top 16 beckons.

The second result I must mention is the World 10-ball Championships. This event featuring the world’s best pool players was held out in the Phillipines with over 30 countries represented. In addition it had live TV coverage in Asia and a $400,000 prize fund. So why does nobody outside the industry realise that Britain has another world champion?

That’s right, Pontefract’s Darren Appleton won the title 13-11 against Chia-Ching Wu of Taipei. It is one of the most deserved wins on the curcuit and CueSport TV would like to offer our biggest congratulations to Darren on his victory.

Appleton is one of the hardest working professionals on the pool circuit and is becoming feared in every corner of the globe, this win cements his status as one of the top players in the world. He is a very likable character that truly believes in the sport he plays. He works so hard on the table and has put in many hours over the last couple of years honing his skills on the larger American tables (his background is of course English Pool). Once again well done Darren!

This win means that Britain now has two of the four available world titles and Europe has all 4!

• World 9-ball Champion: Daryl Peach - England
• World 10-ball Champion: Darren Appleton - England
• World 8-ball Champion: Ralf Souquet - Germany
• World 14.1 Champion: Niels Feijen - Holland

With this is further solidifies the UK’s position within the global pool scene, we now have two world champions, the European number 1 and at the time of writing England have reached the semi-finals of the World Cup of Pool, global domination is certainly on the cards, and the future also looks bright with the likes of Phil Burford, Jayson Shaw and Thomas Ainsworth-Smith making there way up the rankings as well.

That’s right we covered around 100 hours of pool in the Isle of Man and what a way it finished with the eagerly awaited CueSport TV £50k series. 7 days of the festival went out live on air, where else can you get that amount of prolonged exposure for a pool event. Not even the World or European championships get that much coverage!

Simon Ward has shown over the last few months that he likes the TV cameras, 3 tournaments, 3 wins! This one was once again a tremendous match against another Welsh player Craig Marsh. The best-of-25 frame final was a match of the highest order with Wardy walking away with the £3500 winners cheque and Marsh settling for the £1500 runner-up prize.

All of the action from the Isle of Man can be witnessed on CueSport TV again over the next few weeks as we trawl through the matches that we recorded.

CueSport TV are now live from the Isle of Man festival of Pool for the next 7 days, watch live pool action from 12pm - 10pm daily.

At the weekend Tom Cousins from Wales became the British Open Champion with an outstanding 11-1 victory over Ian Gillies. Ian’s wife Linda went one better in beating Yvonne Ewing 8-6 in the ladies final.

The team event started today and finishes with the finals on Wednesday, tonight is the men’s singles, Tuesday the ladies singles and wednesday the mixed doubles. Friday see’s the start of the eagerly anticipated CueSport TV £50,000 pool series with a myriad of top professionals making the trip across the water.

Stay tuned for all of the action!

I am well and truly back from Belgium and what a few days it was!

I originally arrived on Wednesday so that I could make sure that everything was going to run as smoothly as possible, things were not to be! I started set-up on Thursday and the difficulties we encounter when streaming through an Internet connection are Firewalls, Upload speeds and IP addresses! Thursday I was about ready to pack up and leave when we finally solved our port forwarding problem and were able to stream on the channel! This was at 8:30pm! But it did mean a hopefully stress free day on Friday.

I will not bore you with a ‘diary’ of the weekend, those of you that watched the live stream will know the problems we suffered and will also have an opinion on the quality of the coverage. (Just a quick side note: Saturday & Sunday were far better than the Friday in my opinion).

I have to say, and I know I am not alone, that the physical ticket sales and people actually in the venue were far less than expected. The reasons for this will be debated by Connect Management long after the final ball has been potted and no doubt will bring positive changes to next years event.

The crowd that was around were very knowledgeable and gave the players the support that they deserved, when required. I heard not a bad word spoken by any of the players all weekend which is testament to the organisation at the venue and in the set-up of the actual event.

Belgian Snooker Prodigy, Luca Brecel

It is obvious, through the number of players and the passionate fans, that snooker in Belgium has the potential to be huge. Belgian players like Yvan Van Velthoven and Bjorn Haneveer have already appeared on the main tour and the future certainly looks bright. Two players need a mention, Luca Brecel, this 13 year old is one of the most naturally talented cueists I have ever seen and coupled with this has the right temperament for a snooker player. Even at this age he didn’t seem phased by a TV camera and a packed auditorium and got on with the job to the best of his ability. He finished second in his group behind a much thinner looking Matthew Stevens. The only defeat Luca suffered in the group stage was to Stevens and even in this game Brecel gave the professional a real run for his money. Brecel booked himself a spot in the Last 48 where he lost 3-1 to Tom Ford.

This young lads future looks very bright and he is already being touted by some as a future World Champion his popularity will grow and his publicity will also accelerate across Belgium and beyond.

The second name that needs a mention is another youngster, Julius Grauls, this talent reached the Last 32 where he was beaten by world number 8 Ryan Day, but only by a scoreline of 3-2!

These two players along with the already recognised ‘elder statesman’ of Belgian Snooker have the ability and talent to propel Belgium to be a world force in Snooker. Much as we saw with Ding Junhui in the last few years, it only takes a bit of a following before a single player can warrant a World Ranking event in his own country. Could the Belgium Open become a main tour event? Possibly, but in it’s current guise it is guaranteed for at least until 2010, which gives Belgium a tournament featuring world class talent to be proud of.

COMPETITION NOW CLOSED!

I am not repeating the question on our blog as it is for our live viewers only - sorry!

Please post your answer to the question announced on air via the comments button below. With your answer please also post your name.

Good Luck.

Final (Best of 7)

• Ricky Walden 4-0 Graeme Dott

Semi-Final Draw (Best of 5)

• Dave Harold 2v3 Ricky Walden
• Graeme Dott 3-0 Stephen Maguire

Quarter-final Draw (Best of 5)

• Dave Harold 3-1 Mark Davis
• Ricky Walden 3-1 Tom Ford
• Stephen Maguire 3-2 Joe Perry (TV Table)
• Graeme Dott 3-1 Mark J Williams

Last 16 Draw & Results (Best of 5)

• Mark Selby 2-3 Dave Harold
• Mark Davis 3-2 Mark King
• Neil Robertson 2-3 Ricky Walden
• Tom Ford 3-2 Ryan Day
• Stephen Maguire 3-2 Matthew Stevens
• Jamie Cope 0-3 Joe Perry
• Graeme Dott 3-2 Gerard Greene
• Mark J Williams 3-2 Shaun Murphy (TV Table)

A PPV Ticket is only £4.00 for today.

High Breaks

• Neil Robertson 142
• Jamie Cope 130
• Barry Hawkins 125
• Joe Perry 118
• Mark Selby 115
• Ken Doherty 108
• Stephen Maguire 105
• Shaun Murphy 101
• Mark King 101
• Tom Ford 100

Selby has 4 centuries 115, 107, 105, 104

Barry Hawkins has two 125 & 123

Neil Robertson has two 142 & 103.

Tomorrow we are down to the last 16 stage of what has been a very good tournament the TV table will feature 4 best of 9 matches starting with a Last 16 match at 10:00am local time. I don’t yet have the match available to me.

• Last 16 - 10:00am - Mark Williams v Shaun Murphy
• Quarter-finals - 12:00pm
• Semi-final - 14:30pm
• Final - 17:30pm

We hope that you can join us for the action once again.

Last 32 Draw & Results

• Mark Selby 3-0 John Parrott
• Barry Hawkins 1-3 Dave Harold
• Mark Davis 3-0 Mario Geudens
• Mark King 3-1 Johan D’Hondt
• Neil Robertson 3-0 Alain Vandersteen
• Bjorn Haneveer 0-3 Ricky Walden
• Jimmy Michie 0-3 Tom Ford
• Ryan Day 3-2 Julius Grauls
• Stephen Maguire 3-0 Stefan Mazrocis
• Matthew Stevens 3-0 Steve Lemmens
• Ken Doherty 2-3 Jamie Cope
• Joe Perry 3-0 Michael Holt
• Graeme Dott 3-0 Lasse Munsterman
• Stuart Bingham 2-3 Gerard Greene
• Mark Williams 3-1 Dominic Dale
• Shaun Murphy 3-2 Kasra Khavaran

Complete list of results for the Last 32 stage.

Last 48 Draw

• S. Mazrocis v G. Kopec 3-0 (winner plays S. Maguire)
• S. Lemmens v J. Van Roy 3-0 (winner plays M. Stevens)
• A. Higginson v J. Cope 1-3 (Cope, 130 break) (Winner plays K. Doherty)
• C. Henry v M. Holt 0-3 (Winner plays J. Perry)
• L. Munstermann v J. Vanden Bossche 3-1 (Winner plays G. Dott)
• Y. Van Velthoven v G. Greene 0-3 (Winner plays S. Bingham)
• D. Dale v T. De Witte 3-0 (Winner plays M. Williams)
• K. Khavaran v M. Dierens 3-0 (Winner plays Shaun Murphy)
• J. Parrott v S. De Sterck 3-0 (Winner plays M. Selby)
• D. Lathouwers v D Harold 2-3 (Winner plays B. Hawkins)
• K. Van Hove-Speltincx v M. Geudens 1-3 (Winner plays Mark Davis)
• J. D’Hondt v N. Vanhee 3-1 (Winner plays M. King)
• A. Vandersteen v G. Hendrickx 3-1 (Winner plays N. Robertson)
• Y. Poulain v R. Walden 1-3 (Winner plays Bjorn Haneveer)
• T. Ford v L. Brecel 3-1 (Winner plays J. Michie)
• J. Grauls v A. Van Loocke 3-1 (Winner plays R. Day)

Match Schedule for Friday

10:00 - Mark Selby v Kasra Kharavan 2-0 (Breaks 104, 105)
10:50 - Shaun Murphy v Stein de Sterck 2-1
11:40 - Chris McBreen v Olivier Coucke 2-1
12:30 - Graeme Dott v Hans Blankaert 2-0 (77, 99)
13:20 - Ryan Day v Gregory Kopec 2-0
14:10 - Mark Williams v Danny Lathouwers 2-0
15:00 - Joe Perry v Peter Vertommen 2-0 (Break 89, Perry)
15:50 - Neil Robertson v Freek Sermeus 2-0 (Break 142, Robertson)
16:40 - Tom Ford v Marc Dierens 2-0 (79, 70)
17:30 - Stephen Maguire v Nico Smeets 2- 0
18:20 - Luca Brecel v Matthew Stevens 0-2
19:10 - Mark King v Jurgen Van Den Bossche 2-0
20:00 - Dave Harold v Lasse Munsterman 2-1

Other TV match: Jimmy Michie v Steve Lemmens 2 - 0

Running behind schedule by about one hour.

Saturday Match Schedule

10:00 - Barry Hawkins v Tino de Witte 2-0 (Break 125)
10:50 - Ken Doherty v Thomas Broeckx 2-0
11:40 - Stuart Bingham v Mario Geudens 2-1

Extra match - Joe Perry v Yorben Vervondel 2-0

12:30 - Gerard Greene v Davy Ducasteele 2-0
13:20 - John Parrott v Dirk D’Hossche 2-0

Remaining sessions on Saturday will be KO stages draw will be below when we get it.