Stuart Bingham won the 2015 Championship League yesterday after a 3-2 victory in the final over Mark Davis in Crondon Park.
With the seven players involved, the Winners Group was expected to be a tight affair and that duly was the case as only two points separated the entire field following the league stage.
Indeed, Bingham almost missed out on a semi-final berth but secured the required 3-0 victory over Barry Hawkins to progress, in doing so knocking the Group 1 champion out and gaining the ultimate revenge for defeat in that group’s final at the start of January.
Only two wins for Ali Carter and Xiao Guodong ensured they exited the event prior to the play-offs stage as well so it was up to Bingham, Ben Woollaston, Mark Davis and Matthew Selt, who topped the round-robin standings, to battle for the title.
After overcoming Selt helped by a top break of 110 in the last four, Bingham met Davis in the final, who squeezed past Woollaston in a tight decider.
With 10,000 pounds at stake, the final was equally close but Bingham produced the goods at 2-1 down with breaks of 126 and 79 to emerge victorious.
The cheque and the trophy will no doubt be nice for ‘Ballrun’, but perhaps most importantly is the invitation he will now receive into the lucrative Champion of Champions later this year.