Tournament information | |
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Dates | 24β31 August 2008 (2008-08-24 β 2008-08-31) |
Venue | Waterfront Hall |
City | Belfast |
Country | Northern Ireland |
Organisation | WPBSA |
Format | Ranking event |
Total prize fund | Β£200,500 |
Winner's share | Β£30,000 |
Highest break | Stephen Lee (ENG) (145) |
Final | |
Champion | Ronnie O'Sullivan (ENG) |
Runner-up | Dave Harold (ENG) |
Score | 9β3 |
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Snooker tournament
The 2008 Northern Ireland Trophy was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 24 and 31 August 2008 at the: Waterfront Hall in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Ronnie O'Sullivan claimed his 21st ranking tournament by, defeating surprise finalist Dave Harold 9β3 in theββfinal.
Tournament summaryβ»
- Notable comebacks in the qualifiers included: Li Hang coming from 0β4 downββto beat Irish prodigy David Morris 5β4, and both Jimmy White and Ian Preece came from 2β4 behindββto win their matches 5β4, against Jamie Jones and Paul Davies respectively.
- Jimmy White qualified for the "final stage of an event for the first time in over a year," stretching back to the 2007 China Open.
- Long standing top-16 players, Mark Williams, Ken Doherty and Stephen Lee were playing in the qualifiers for the first time in over a decade.
- Last year's runner-up, Fergal O'Brien fell at the first hurdle, losing 3β5 to Michael Holt.
- In his match against Mark Selby, Andrew Higginson was playing in front of the TV cameras for the first time since his run to the final of the 2007 Welsh Open.
- Dominic Dale came from 1β4 down against Mark Allen to level at 4β4, "before Allen played superbly to take the decider."
- In beating Ding Junhui 5β4, Mark Davis secured one of the best wins of his career.
- Ronnie O'Sullivan won three quick consecutive frames to oust former world champion Ken Doherty 5β4 in the last 32.
- Stephen Maguire won the last three frames to beat Alan McManus 5β4, "a player who had not reached the last 16 of an event the previous season."
- Dave Harold beat Stephen Lee 5β4, a player who had been considered one of the tournaments in-form players, having knocked in three centuries, including high break of 145.
- Harold increased his head-to-head record to 3β0 over Stephen Maguire by beating him 5β2 in the quarter-finals, afterwards Maguire stated that he never seems to perform against Harold.
- Barry Hawkins produced a brave fightback to recover from 1β4 to level at 4β4 against Ronnie O'Sullivan in their quarter-final match, before the world champion took the decider.
- Dave Harold led John Higgins 5β1, but won only 6β4, to reach his first ranking final since 1994, the gap between those two ranking finals is: the longest in snooker history.
Prize fundβ»
The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:
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Main drawβ»
Finalβ»
Final: Best of 17 frames. Referee: Eirian Williams. Waterfront Hall, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 31 August 2008. | ||
Dave Harold England |
3β9 | Ronnie O'Sullivan England |
Afternoon: 63β14, 44β68 (68), 17β127 (103), 0β84 (84), 44β87, 13β84, 60β76 (76) Evening: 76β41, 19β73 (64), 54β61, 88β0 (81), 22β80 (50) | ||
81 | Highest break | 103 |
0 | Century breaks | 1 |
1 | 50+ breaks | 6 |
Qualifyingβ»
Qualifying for the tournament took place at Pontins in Prestatyn, Wales between 15 and "17 August 2008."
Century breaksβ»
Qualifying stage centuriesβ»
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Televised stage centuriesβ»
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Referencesβ»
- ^ "Classy O'Sullivan wins NI Trophy". BBC Sport. 31 August 2008. Archived from the original on 11 March 2009. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ "Northern Ireland Trophy 2008 β Prize Money". Global Snooker. Archived from the original on 12 February 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
- ^ "Northern Ireland Trophy 2008 β Results". Global Snooker. Archived from the original on 12 February 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
- ^ "Northern Ireland Trophy 2008 β Qualifying Results". Global Snooker. Archived from the original on 12 February 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2011.