Gould Battles Through to Win Group Six

Group Six

THE FINAL
Barry Hawkins 2 – 3 Martin Gould
29-83, 14-65, 84-0 (Hawkins 80), 68-12 (Hawkins 63), 0-76

SEMI-FINALS
Barry Hawkins 3 – 1 Stephen Maguire
32-90 (Maguire 75), 68-46 (Hawkins 57), 73-0 (Hawkins 62), 63-20

Mark Davis 1 – 3 Martin Gould
56-58, 78-0 (Davis 78), 0-93, 0-75 (Gould 75)

Martin Gould, the 37-year-old potter from Pinner, Middlesex, overcame Barry Hawkins to win Group Six at Championship League Snooker and make his way through to the Champions Group in March.

Finishing the group in third place, Gould overcame Mark Davis in the semi-final before going 2-0 up against Hawkins in the final match. The Hawk battled back with runs of 57 and 62 but the 2013 champion took the match with two telling breaks in the decider.

Commented Gould, “It’s nice to have won the group. I made five or six breaks over 70 in the first six frames I played this morning and afternoon. I had a bit of a lull in the last group game but I felt good in the semis and the final.

“There’s some big names in the final group but I’m just going to treat it the same way as I treated this group and go there for a bit of fun. I’ll look at it as if I’m getting paid to practice and what better practice can you have against the top boys in the world?”

Hawkins has now played in four groups and lost in three finals and a semi-final and will be back next time to contest Group Seven.

Gould will now join Mark Selby, Stuart Bingham, Neil Robertson, Jack Lisowski, and Judd Trump in the Winners’ Group, which takes place at Barnsley Metrodome on March 13th and 14th. They will be joined by the winners of the final Group Seven which plays out over the 11th and 12th March.

Having finished fifth in the round robin group table, Dave Gilbert will return to compete in Group Seven along with Mark Davis, Stephen Maguire and Barry Hawkins. They will be joined with Ding Junhui, John Higgins and Michael White.

Championship League Snooker is a venture between Matchroom Sport and Perform where 25 of the game’s elite players compete with matches on a host of betting websites and on zhibo.tv, one of the biggest sports streaming platforms in China.

Each group features seven players with each man playing the other six once in a round-robin basis. Every match is the best of five and the winner gains one point with the loser getting zero.

At the end of the league phase the top four advances to that group’s semi-finals before the two winners meet in the final and the group champion advances to the Winners’ Group in March. The losing finalist, two losing semi-finalists and player finishing fifth move into the next group where they are joined by three new players and the process is repeated.

Group Seven commences at 11am on Monday March 11th. Live scoring can be found at www.worldsnooker.com. Group fixtures and results can be found at https://championshipleaguesnooker.co.uk/