Brilliant Hamilton claims emotinal 1st Ranking Title!

There are plenty of Snooker all around the World these days and every week there's a different story in the sport. But last week saw one of the most emotinal, deserved and waited win Snooker have ever seen.

But to understand why Anthony Hamilton's victory in Berlin was the most special of the season, we've got to go back to last season. He had been a professional for 25 years already and he wasn't really playing well anymore.
After two terrible seasons, where Hamilton - whose abilities are so admired by fellow professionals - was losing to players that weren't nearly good enough to be in Top 100 in the World, he found himself needing a few wins in an European Tour to enter the list of players earning a tour place in the following season through an Order of Merit because he was about to lose his tour place. He had been struggling to even win first round matches for two years then and to be honest I could see nothing but retirement ahead of him.
However, surprisingly he won the matches he needed and hang into the main tour. Yet he had to start the season from zero in Ranking Points. But that would be no problem for him, as his best ever season was awaiting him and things begun to change at the Home Nations.
After making the Quarter Finals in the English Open, he found himself locked at 5-5 with Barry Hawkins in the Semi-Finals of the Northern Ireland Open. He was playing well at the time and you knew that one chance should be enough for him to make a first Ranking Event Final in 15 years, but it wasn't to be. One thing that is not unluck, neither predictable and that happens to anyone, happened to him, in the worst possible time. He feathered the cue-ball when amongst the balls and gave Hawkins the match and the chance to play Mark King in a Final that Hamilton surely would've fancied winning.

It was in Northern Ireland that everyone realized that Hamilton is such a good person and felt sorry for him when he admitted that he'd been struggling for money after dedicating  26 years of his life to professional Snooker. Anyway, sport is brutal and I bet everyone, him included, felt that his biggest chance to finally win a Ranking tournament had gone.

Though, I don't think anyone should've written a better script to his career. He arrived in Berlin simply to enjoy playing at the Tempodrom again, bringing his parents to see him play there as it might be the last time. Fact is that, whether it was the last time or not it was in time; the World Number 66 beat double World Champion Mark Williams, double and reigning World, UK Champion and World No1 Mark Selby, World Championship finalist Barry Hawkins and former World Champion and current World No2 Stuart Bingham before defeating the reigning World Open Champion Ali Carter in a superb comeback in the Final. It was, at last, Hamilton's long waited Ranking title - after 26 years of dedication, two finals lost (the one in 2002 v Mark Williams losing 8-9 after leading 8-5 in the China Open), struggle for money and a heart-breaking semi-final defeat in Belfast earlier in the season.


It is a true story that with so many Ranking Tournaments filling the calendar nowadays and so many travels, less top players make the field for some events and it affects the standard of some tournaments like the German Masters, as I've discussed here before; Naturally then, you will win something if you're good enough.
If you asked me 12 months ago who was the best player never to win a Ranking event I'd say it was Martin Gould, then he won the German Masters. So I started to consider Liang Wenbo as the best player yet to win a Ranking Tournament, but that wasn't for long as he won the English Open. It took then only a few weeks for his successor, Mark King, win his maiden title. And now, the heir of the "Best player never to win a Ranking tournament" title has just done it in front of the warmest crowd Snooker has - the Tempodrom's.


Now, I think Ryan Day is the best player never to win a Ranking tournament and normally, it's now just a matter of time until he wins one, isn't it? Anyway, thanks for reading and like Ronnie O`Sullivan Brasil on Facebook to be the first to know when Ryan Day is crossing the line - it might be this week at the World Grand Prix 🤔