European Tour 3 - Bluebell Wood Open

Bluebell Wood Open champion Ricky Walden with WPBSA
chairman Jason Ferguson (Image: World Snooker)

Ricky Walden secured his third professional tournament win as he swooped to victory in the inaugural Bluebell Wood Open at the Doncaster Dome on Saturday night. He overcame recent Wuxi Classic winner Marco Fu after a final frame decider to scoop the third European Tour event along with a £20,000 winner’s cheque.

The Chester man won the opening frame although Fu responded with a 113 break in the next. Word Championship semi-finalist Walden then stretched his lead with runs off 44 and 73 in the next two but Fu kept his foot in the match by taking a lengthy fifth. The Hong Kong man then forced a decider with a run of 54 as Walden appeared more and more frustrated. The final frame was very cagey with few breaks into double figures but then out of the blue, Walden fluked a red into the middle and went onto make a 65 clearance to seal the tournament victory.

Earlier in the day, he put in a solid performance to win his semi-final against Sale’s Shaun Murphy, making breaks of 60, 72 and 70 on course to a 4-1 victory. Fu was made to work much harder in his semi-final, which also went the distance, as he squeezed past Ding Junhui. Fu seemed to be cruising to victory at 3-0 up but Ding stopped the rot by taking a drawn-out fourth frame and then won the next two, with a top break of 98. But the comeback was to no avail as Fu took the decider 68-8.

Ding showcased his excellent break-building during his quarter-final in which he beat Jimmy Robertson 4-1, earlier in the afternoon. He rolled in breaks of 146, 77, 124 and 72 on course to victory, but it was still an excellent run for the ever-improving world number 45. Fu also had similar success in his quarter final as he whitewashed recent Rotterdam Open champion Mark Williams, with top runs of 102, 93 and 65.

Walden came back from 3-1 down to progress through his quarter-final, beating Mark Allen after a final frame decider. And despite losing the first two frames against Stephen Maguire, Murphy won the next four on the bounce to secure his spot in the semis.

A few players further down the rankings enjoyed relative success in the tournament by reaching the last 16 on Saturday. World number 57 Peter Lines beat Ronnie O’Sullivan 4-1 with an excellent performance in the third round on Friday, but his run was ended as Maguire defeated him 4-1 on Saturday morning.

Newcomer to the tour this year Vinnie Calabrese also made the last 16, with his most notable scalp being a 4-2 win over world number 2 Mark Selby in the first round, but he was defeated by Jimmy Robertson in the last 16. Dave Gilbert’s excellent run of form continued into this event and the Tamworth man also reached the last 16 but was defeated by Walden. Other players to reach the fourth round included Rod Lawler, who defeated John Higgins on Friday, Steve Davis and Pankaj Advani.

The next action on the World Snooker circuit is another European Tour event, this time from Furth in Germany for the Paul Hunter Open which runs from this Friday to Sunday.