Craig Marsh put on a near faultless performance at the second 8 Ball Super Tour event of 2009 to lift his first World Rules title.

The event held at Club 147 in Leicester did have a bit of a depleted field due to a wedding of a fellow pool player, but what it lacked in numbers it certainly made up for in quality. Joining Marsh in this event were defending champion, Simon Ward, winner of event 1, Carl Morris and 2009 WEPF World 8-ball Champion, Phil Harrison amongst others.

Saturday

The first day is always a long one at these events as the field has to go from 128 down to 32. This particular weekend saw a number of no-shows which left some big gaps in the draw plus a number of high profile players lost out early on in the tournament, Ben Davies, Simon Ward and Chris Melling were all gone by the end of day one. Davies losing 8-1 to relative unknown Avi Singh early in the first round.

Other day one casualties included professionals Gareth Hibbott, Adam Davis and Partab Singh meaning that day one ended up being the graveyard for IPA pro’s.

Sunday

Day two started on time with a cracking match between two young pro’s on the IPA tour, Steve Petty and Neil Raybone. These two certainly know their way around an 8-ball table and a very tense match finished 8-7 in favour of Neil Raybone after he had trailed by two frames on three different occasions during the course of this match.

Sunday also continued as Saturday left off with another World Champion, in Phil Harrison, dropping at this stage to Welshman Kyle Edwards.

As the day progressed four players were starting to emerge as candidates to lift the title, two of them drew each other in the quarter finals. A match that was a repeat of the first event final back in August. This time Irishman Ronan McCarthy got pay back for losing the final to Carl Morris and after 2 hours and 42 minutes beat Carl 8-7 to reach the semi-finals.

One of the semi-finals was a complete contrast to the match that had gone before as Craig Marsh came up against another Welsh youngster, Jordan Shepherd, This match finished in just under 45 minutes with Marsh the 8-4 victor. Shepherd put on a very good display and will certainly have a future in the game. He could be very dangerous in another years time when he has gained a little bit more experience.

McCarthy beat Raybone in the second semi final to reach his second consecutive final on the Super Tour. He has also recently reached the final of an IPA Tour event and won a pro event as well so is hitting a very rich vein of form.

The Final

Craig Marsh being a non-pro actually carriues a one frame start at these events but Ronan soon closed the deficit with a neat break & run. This was followed by a scrappy frame which Marsh managed to take. Ronan did pull the next frame back after a mistake from the Welshman leading to a scoreline of 2-2. This proximity was shortlived though as Marsh managed to take the next three frames which included two fantastic clearances.

A break & run from Ronan in the 12 frame leveled up the match once again and at this stage it looked anyone’s game, however, Marsh had other ideas and also made another break & finish to get onto the hill at 7-6. Ronan broke dry in the next frame that left Marsh with a massive opportunity but a tricky layout.

He was not phased at all and made the best finish of the night to lift the title and the £2700.00 first prize money.

View the results at the Cuesport TV Blog

> First Round

> Second Round

> Final Day

Videos of the event will be available next week at Cuesport TV.