Massey, Peach & Osborne Win in Croydon - CueSport

Massey, Peach & Osborne Win in Croydon - CueSport

Got back monday morning from the GB9 Southern Masters at the weekend. 128 players in Britain’s official professional 9-ball tour and what a weekend it was!

We were of course at the event in our capacity as official streaming media partners of the GB 9 Ball Tour and we recorded 14 matches and a few interviews from the weekend which will be available later this week.

The first thing I must offer is my greatest respect to the organisers as they faced their biggest challenge yet when 4 of the tables for the tournament were deemed unplayable.

With 128 players in three divisions the GB9 Tour is built around a 16 table format. This meant that the 12 table contingency plan had to be adopted. This meant a change to match times and every player had to be called to give them a new start time. A phenomenol amount of work carried out by both Lee Rigby and Shirley Ang to make sure the event could still run smoothly.

This did mean that the finals of the pro and challenge cups finished very late on Saturday/Sunday. But all was worth it with two very high quality final matches.

In the Challenge event, incidentally our choice for ‘Player Focus’ during the weekend, Damian Massey beat Adam Benn Smith in a match where he was 5-1 down and came back to lift his first GB9 Tour title with an 11-7 victory. Fully deserved from a man that has always had the game and has won numerous small open events. This now means a possible step-up for Damian to the Pro Cup in 2010.

In the Pro Event - our video coverage is mainly from this event - local boy Damian Overton came up against 2007 World 9-ball Champion Daryl Peach. A high quality match that ended up going hill-hill with Daryl to break after having won the earlier lag. Daryl prevailed and won his second GB9 Pro title. Both players were on top form and it was shame for Damian, as one of the most likeable characters on tour, that he couldn’t lift his first ever tournament title. Overton who by his own admission struggled in 2008 and thought he may not keep his pro tour spot has now moved up to number 4 in the Professional rankings.

The Main Event

Last year we only covered the main event finals in Solihull and Croydon and cncentrated mainly on the Pro Cup, this year, where possible, we will also be offering some match coverage from the sunday.

We picked up our action with a last 32 match between UK number 1 Imran Majid and a newcomer to the tour Kevin Hew. Kevin is no newcomer to the game of 9-ball though having won a number of events on the old UK 9-ball tour. In a match I thought would have been a touch closer Imran Majid booked a last 16 spot with a 9-4 win.

In the last 16 our attention turned to the Predator World 10-ball Champion, Tony Drago, who was playing against Challenge Tour winner Damian Massey. A very close and entertaining match ended up with Drago winning 9-7 to get into the 1/4 finals.

In the 1/4 finals we focused our attention on Karl Boyes versus Craig Osborne. Craig missed the first event in Solihull as he was in New York taking a holiday but bounced back in this event showing some true class. He bested Karl 9-5 to book his third GB9 semi-final place. The quarter-finals threw up some very interesting matches the most notable was challenge tour player, Martin Chapman, beating Daryl Peach 9-4. The other big shock was Scott Higgin beating Raj Hundal 9-7. The other match featured Majid and Drago, Majid won it 9-7.

So to the semi-finals where we picked UK number 1, Imran Majid against Martin Chapman. Chapman never really got going and failed to show the class he had produced against Daryl Peach in the previous round and ended up losing 9-3 to the man that was defending this title. In the other match Craig Osborne went further than before by booking a birth in the final with a 9-4 victory over Scott Higgins.

The Final

Rarely have we had a GB9 Tour final that has been heavily one-sided, this was also no exception to that rule. One of the most entertaining finals ever saw Craig ‘Shotgun’ Osborne lift his first GB9 Tour title 11-10. Fully deserved and he looks like he is brimming with confidence for the 2009 season. Unfortunate for Imran after he had also had his car towed away earlier in the day due to a parking infringement!

Roll on the next event in May!