Perry beats Williams in Players final thriller

Perry beats Williams in Players final thriller

Englishman comes back from 3-1 down to finish off Welshman 4-3

Joe Perry stunned Mark Williams 4-3 in the final of the 2015 Players Championship at the Montien Riverside Hotel last night.

Welshman Williams, who won the world title in 2000 and 2003, raced to a 3-1 lead only for the Englishman to win the last three frames.

In the final frame, Perry took a 54-0 lead but missed an easy red. However, Williams failed to stage a comeback as the Englishman went on to win 78-7.

World No.13 Perry took home five million baht, while Williams got two million baht from a total purse of 15 million baht.

In yesterday’s semi-finals, world No.14 Williams secured an impressive 4-2 victory over pre-tournament favourite Judd Trump while Perry inflicted a 4-1 loss on No.9 Stuart Bingham.

World No.7 Trump had been having a good time on the match table and seemed on course for back-to-back titles after his sensational triumph over Ronnie O’Sullivan in the World Grand Prix last Sunday.

Williams, however, had a good start in the semi-final competition as a break of 74 points handed him a 2-0 advantage.

Trump responded with a 102-point, frame-capturing break in the third, but Williams by then was riding on a tide of confidence.

The Welshman played some shots that left the large crowd at the venue in awe and a break of 85 points in the fourth frame left him on the verge of a place in his first ranking event final since 2011.

Trump of England tried his best to stay afloat, had a break of 50 in the fifth, but there was no stopping Williams, who had made three semi-finals before arriving in Bangkok this week.

On Friday night, Trump said after his 4-2 quarter-final win over compatriot Martin Gould (No.24), that expressed some concern that since he has been in Bangkok, he had played every game at night, and was worried that yesterday’s afternoon semi-final against Williams “might be a bit harder”.

Williams edged out Matthew Selt 4-3, after trailing 3-1, in the quarter-finals on Thursday, while Bingham shared the first two frames against Mark Davis in Bangkok, but then won three in a row with breaks of 52, 101 and 82.

Organiser Stuart MacDonnell, said yesterday: “We have received very positive feedbacks from players and fans and definitely remain interested in bringing more world professional snooker events to Thailand.”

The players will next play in Beijing at the world ranking China Open, which begins tomorrow.

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