Ben Woollaston won the penultimate Championship League group in Crondon Park yesterday to become the sixth player through to the Winners Group next month.
The Englishman sneaked into the semi-finals after narrowly pipping Fergal O’Brien to fourth place following the round-robin phase.
Both competitors won three out of their six encounters but Woollaston conceded one less frame than the Irishman and therefore advanced.
The 27 year-old joined Peter Ebdon, Dominic Dale and David Gilbert in the last four, overcoming the latter 3-1 to reach the final.
Ebdon defeated Dale by the same scoreline but was unable to get on the board in the final, with Woollaston running out a relatively comfortable 3-0 champion.
A former PTC winner, Woollaston will be hoping that this could give him the confidence to further his progression in the sport.
He joins Barry Hawkins, Matthew Selt, Ali Carter, Stuart Bingham and Mark Davis in the Winners Group, where a victory there guarantees an invitation into the lucrative Champion of Champions later in the year.
Ebdon, Dale, Gilbert and O’Brien move into Group 7, which is the last opportunity to gain entry into the final showdown, and will be joined by newcomers Mark Williams, John Higgins and Xiao Guodong.
Rod Lawler and Kurt Maflin finished in the bottom two places in Group 6 and thus were eliminated.
