GROUP FINAL
Mark Williams 3–1 Joe Perry
0-114 (114), 64-40, 75-0 (75)
GROUP SEMI-FINALS
Yan Bingtao 0-3 Joe Perry
31-84, 0-80 (72), 22-64 (50)
Mark Williams 3-1 David Gilbert
76-0 (67), 80-25 (72), 22-79 (51), 90-1 (84)
Mark Williams beat Joe Perry 3-1 in the Group 7 final to complete the BetVictor Championship League Snooker Winners’ Group line-up.
The Welshman joins a Winners’ Group which now includes four World Champions among its seven players after taking the last spot in the tournament’s big-money finale, which begins at 12:30pm tomorrow (Wednesday).
Perry opened with a 114 in the final, but Williams played well from there. He levelled the match at 1-1 before a 75 saw him take the lead. The fourth frame saw Williams made a fine 71, fitting of the way he had played in the match. Perry needed two snookers at that stage but couldn’t find them and conceded after just one visit.
“I played well both days, I have been playing okay for a while now,” said Williams, who will now meet Zhou Yuelong, Graeme Dott, John Higgins, Judd Trump, Kyren Wilson and Ali Carter in Winners’ Group.
“These groups are difficult; it always goes down to the last game pretty much and the Winners’ Group will be no different; they’ve all won a group to get here.
“You have to keep trying to make as many breaks as you can because you can beat someone 3-0, qualify for the semis and then they beat you 3-0! It’s just about getting through whether that’s first, second, third or fourth.”
Perry only made it to the play-offs at the very last minute of the group. He needed to beat Kurt Maflin to have any chance of finishing in the top four, while also relying on Yan Bingtao to beat Anthony McGill. Defeat for the Scot meant Perry had a chance, and at that stage he was tied at 2-2 with Maflin with 42 points on the board.
The former Championship League winner didn’t know whether McGill had won or not, but managed to get the victory, and then beat Yan 3-0 in the semi-final. Williams had beaten David Gilbert 3-1 in his semi-final having finished second in the League phase.
Live coverage of BetVictor Championship League Snooker is available on Matchroom.Live as well as on Freesports in the UK & Ireland, Zhibo.tv in China and on global betting platforms.
Each of the seven players in the group faces each other once in the round-robin stage, after which the top four players in the league table progress to Tuesday evening’s play-offs. The eventual group champion will advance to Winners’ Group, which begins on Thursday.
BetVictor Championship League Snooker sees 25 of the game’s elite players compete for their share of a total prize pot of up to £205,000.
Winners’ Group begins at 12:30pm on Thursday (April 1). Live scoring can be found at www.wst.tv. Group fixtures and results can be found at https://championshipleaguesnooker.co.uk/
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