Gould Takes Championship League Title for Second Time

THE FINAL
Jack Lisowski 1-3 Martin Gould
0-115 (Gould 115), 85-19 (Lisowski 63), 38-72, 36-66

SEMI-FINALS
Neil Robertson 0-3 Jack Lisowski
0-80 (Lisowski 80), 0-91 (Lisowski 91), 53-69 (Robertson 45, Lisowski 63)

Martin Gould 3-0 John Higgins
105-0 (Gould 105), 100-0 (Gould 55, 45), 64-60 (Gould 57

Pinner’s Martin Gould, the current World No.27, won through in a stellar field to take his second Championship League Snooker title, beating Jack Lisowski 3-1 in the final match at the Metrodome in Barnsley.

Gould was a winner of this event back in 2013 and a finalist the following year and he overcame some stiff competition to claim the title. He won four out of six matches in the group stage, finishing second to Neil Robertson, before beating John Higgins 3-0 in the semi.

He opened with a century in the final – his fifth of the winners’ group – before Lisowski, making his debut in the competition, pegged him back with a run of 63. Coming at the end of a long day, the final two frames were a little scrappy but Gould held off his opponent to take them both for the title.

“It’s nice to win again – there’s a lot riding on this. You get a Champion of Champions spot which is massive really. I think today I was a little more on it than yesterday. I played well yesterday but today I started with two three-nils.

“I felt really relaxed and to be fair, I really enjoy this event. I take it as a bit of fun – you’re getting paid to virtually practice and it’s match practice that you could never get anywhere else.

“To win this event with the players that were in this group is a great confidence booster for me. And hopefully I can take it forward to the World qualifiers as that’s all that is left for me this season.”

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. 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.

The event returns in January 2020.

Results can be found at https://championshipleaguesnooker.co.uk/