Ken Doherty achieved his first ever competitive 147 Maximum break en route to claiming outright victory at the Cue Club Pro-Am in Killarney on Sunday. The Dubliner made the break during his comfortable 4-0 victory over fourth ranked Mark Tuite in the quarter-finals of the tournament in which he had already provided some superb snooker to qualify out of his group.
The tournament had already witnessed seven century breaks up to that point, the highest having been compiled by Northern Irish professional Patrick Wallace in his first match on Friday, a superb 138 total clearance. Even with the standard of play so high throughout the tournament nobody could have predicted such a display from Doherty. The Dubliner, obviously still on a high after the maximum, then went on to thrill the local spectators with a scintillating display of snooker which saw him rattle in breaks of 123, 135 and 136 on the way to beating Irish International Tom Gleeson from Nenagh 4-2 in their semi-final encounter.
While Ken was the player to watch in that half of the draw, the other half saw Irish number one Rodney Goggins earned his place in the final thanks to some superb wins, one of which was a 4-0 triumph over 13-year-old sensation David Morris from Kilkenny, who had sensationally beaten World No 22 Michael Judge 3-0 in the last 16. Goggins then beat Northern Irish International Kieran McMahon in the semis to set up a final showdown with Dohery.
With both players in such excellent form a superb final was promised and Doherty did not disappoint as he opened up with breaks of 84 and 81 to take the first two frames. He then went 3-0 ahead despite Goggins' break of 53 in the third frame, and in the next, the underdog managed to pull one frame back before the interval thanks to breaks of 63 and 37.
Doherty opened strongly on the restart with breaks of 57 and 37 and even though Goggins pulled it back to 4-2 the crowd favourite showed his experience in the next frame to take the match 5-2. In his acceptance speech Doherty thanked the organisers of the tournament for the excellent table conditions and hospitably to all the players over the weekend. He dedicated the win to the memory of Liam O’Connor from Cork, a good friend of his and long time supporter of Irish snooker who sadly passed away recently. He then promised to follow up this win by hopefully reproducing the form he showed this weekend at the UK Championships next week.
Filed by Shane Murray
