ABC NEWMARKET

Newmarket Snooker Centre(Sunday 10th January 1999)

Paul Bennett came out top from the 46 entries to win his second consecutive ranking event in dramatic fashion at the Newmarket Snooker Centre.

The early rounds saw Stephen Crosland produce one of the best performances, making breaks of 111, 101 and 63 to record an aggregate of 432 in his 1 hour match against R. Alger. Phil Welham however, produced the highest aggregate of the competition in the second round, with his 458 scored against P. Usher. This included breaks of 97 and 58. This was as close as anyone except Crosland came to the century mark in the early rounds, and by a strange coincidence it was matched by Bennett when he defeated Welham by 65 points in the quarter-finals. Gary Rogers continued his good form, defeating Phil Davis in the quarters, before losing out to the consistency of Paul Bennett in the semi-final. Rogers was in play with 94 at the bell, falling 36 points short of the English Champion, whose best break had been just 65. Darren Kell had progressed to the semi-final without undue exertion, but was at this stage confronted by a barrage of high scoring from Crosland, who dominated the match to win by 123 points.

Entering the final, Crosland had made century breaks in each round of the competition, and saving his best until last, he forged in front with an early break of 169. With just 15 minutes of the match remaining, he had established a lead of 129 and may have been forgiven for thinking he had done enough. However, Bennett, who until this point had failed to record a century break all day, played out time with a rapid-fire 179 to snatch victory by 53 points. This timely return to form also earned Bennett the high break prize, which had seemed at one stage destined to go—with the winners trophy—to the unfortunate Crosland who must have been left wondering just what he had to do to secure victory.

The Plate was won by David Nichols, who had a break of 52 in defeating Colin Summers 350-179 in the one-hour final.