The quarter finals, semi-finals and the final all took place in yesterday's evening session of the World Snooker Shoot-out. There were still shocks to be had including the eventual winner.
Quarter Finals: Judd Trump was the first to be eliminated at this stage despite taking a 26-0 lead. His opponent Milkins came to the table and ended up winning the match 50-27. The impressive Mark King also got defeated, his opponent was the veteran Nigel Bond. Bond took the lead from the outset but just edged the match 29-23.
The shock of the quarter finals was world number one Neil Robertson getting dumped out by Marcus Campbell. Campbell took an early lead of 47-0 but Robertson looked certain to pull it back. However he missed an easy red at 47-33 and Campbell took the match 57-49. Mike Dunn was on course to beat the favourite Ronnie O'Sullivan at 14-0 but he ended up potting the cue ball. From there Ronnie only needed the one visit to progress into the semis with a 94-14 win.
Semi Finals: With three of the semi-finalists seeded below thirty a big surprise was on the cards. It was 36th seed Nigel Bond who secured the first sot in the final with a comprehensive 55-14 win. But the big shock was 33rd seed Milkins beating Ronnie O'Sullivan. Milkins took an early lead of 19-0 before Ronnie fought back to take the lead before missing a black at 26-19. Milkins took full advantage to win 72-35.
Final: With a shock victor already on the cards it was just a matter of which player would win it in the most nerve racking ten minutes of their lives. Milkins got the first chance after a long red but couldn't get on a colour and a poor safety led Bond to take a 6-1 lead. Following a defensive battle Bond was in again to move his score up to twenty before Milkins hit a fantastic plant, but he hit so well he wasn't on a colour. This allowed Bond to take full control of the game to win it 58-23 and become the first World Snooker Shoot-Out Champion.
Overall the tournament has been a big success with the element of surprise being a huge influential factor. Many purists would have hated ITV's Power Snooker as the rules were very different. But I think the purists will be a little happier with this format because the normal snooker rules apply (apart from ball in hand), all that is different is perhaps the speed but that only makes it more enjoyable. Steve Davis got it spot on by saying that 'Barry Hearn has the Midas touch when it comes to bringing in new tournaments' and indeed, it seems, he does.
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