World Ten Ball Champion and World Number 1, Darren Appleton and partner Imran Majid fell short of victory in the £10,000 Scotch Doubles showdown against Karl Boyes and Chris Melling.

Once again the fantastic Club 147 was the host for this enthralling nights entertainment. The main event kicked off at 8pm Saturday 15th August to a packed house of american pool fans. In addition the action was going out live on the Internet via Cuesport TV’s new dedicated channel American Pool TV.

Boyes and Melling were given a 5 rack start in the race-to-35 match and raced into a 10-1 lead. Whereas Boyes and Melling looked relaxed when they came to the table you could certainly see the pressure Appleton and Majid were under from the outset, they looked tense at almost every visit.

It was relatively comfortable going for Boyes and Melling with the main talking point being, once again, the break. Neither pairing was able to find a consistent break shot. This led to a lot of tactical play, tactical and safety play that I must add was of the highest order. Another aspect of the poor breaking conditions was the fact that there was only 3 break and runs throughout the course of the whole match.

There was a controversial point towards the last third of the match that ended up in Karl Boyes conceding the rack after a long argument about whether or not Chris Melling had played a push stroke. A replay of the video was inconclusive, apparantly due to the lack of sound. It was the only real bad blood in the match and as things got tetchy Karl told them, “If it bothers you that much you can have the rack.” Possibly due to the amount of time already spent over the argument and that they were leading by a long way anyway.

As stated above Boyes and Melling looked extremely confident and settled throughout the course of the match and only really got tested in the latter stages. At one point they were leading by 10 racks only to see Appleton and Majid finally find some form on the break including a 10-ball kicked into the middle bag, this led to a scoreline of 33-30 to Boyes and Melling, the closest that Appleton and Majid had got throughout the whole game.

This respite was to be short lived though as Karl and Chris won the next two racks, the final one was made with a 2-10 combination with ball in hand by Chris Melling.

This gave them the match 35-30, the trophy and the £10,000 prize money. I must also mention that the match finished at 4:50am on Sunday 16th August and true epic!

Undercard Match

Earlier in the day Scoptt Higgins matched up against Simon Widlo for a £1000 pot. Widlo as the lower ranked player was given a 4 start in a race-to-15. A start that on paper looked tough.

However, Scott Higgins came charging out of the blocks and went into a 6-4 lead. From this point forward he never looked back and won the match 15-12 in a very fast and high quality match.

Both matches from the weekend can be viewed again soon over at Cuesport TV.

Junior Masterclass

In another nice touch and to make the event more of an occasion Tonic Promotions laid on a Juinor Masterclass for some of the local pool playing youngsters. Chris Melling and Karl Boyes took them through their paces for just over an hour, before they sat down to watch the start of the main event.

It was great to see an event of this kind used for another purpose rather than just bums on seats. These kids had a great time and some of them can already seriously hold a cue so could be the future of the sport in our country.

All-in-all it was a thoroughly well thought out event and big thanks must go to Tony Weafer, David Carter, Club 147 and Cuesport TV for putting the event on and staying open until the small hours whilst an epic match was played until completion.

For more information on Tonic Promotions email: tonic@matchplay.eu

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