LEE Clough produced a gutsy performance to claim the Professional 8 ball Masters title with a 9-7 defeat of Chris Melling in the final.
Clough and Melling had contrasting semi finals matches as they progressed to the final. Melling had overpowered Phil Harrison 9-2. Clough though had a titanic battle with Ronan McCarthy before scrambling through 9-7.
Clough, world ranked number 3 on the IPA rankings soon found himself two racks down in the best of seventeen match as Melling seized control in the early stages of the final. Indeed Melling could have been 3-0 up, had he not missed a yellow to the corner. To encouraging shouts of "Come on Lee" the Blackpool man cleared to snatch the frame and give himself a foothold in the match. Buoyed up Clough claimed the following rack when Melling failed to sink the black. Taking the last three reds and the black Clough levelled at 2-2.
Warming to his task Clough then broke and converted the frame in one visit to lead 3-2. But Melling replied when he took full advantage of an in off from Clough's break off to level at 3-3.
From there they shared the next four frames to leave the scores locked 5-5. Both players needed four further frames for the title, and it was Chris who took the initial step to doing that when Clough missed a yellow to the corner to lead 6-5. Frame 12 remained in the balance as Melling after nominating the yellow balls to play from mistakenly knocked in a red to hand Clough a route back into the frame. As Clough cleared to the last red he ran out of position. Five yellows remained on the table. Even more intriguingly one red was sitting in the jaws of a corner pocket with two yellow balls for company. Playing off the side cushion Lee knocked in the red, but seconds later the cue ball followed the red into the pocket. Dispatching the remaining yellow balls and the black Chris now had some breathing space at 7-5.
But that was to be the last frame Chris won as he lost the thirteenth frame after inadvertently knocking in a red ball. With a reprieve handed to him Lee made no mistake in clearing up to reduce his arrears to 6-7. Minutes later it was all square as Clough broke and converted the frame in one visit.
From there Clough looked the stronger as he capitalised on a missed yellow from Melling to take an 8-7 lead and completed victory at 9-7 to seal the title.
Results
Quarter finals
Ronan McCarthy 9-5 James Croxton
Lee Clough 9-2 Aiden Finch
Phil Harrison 9-3 Ben Davies
Chris Melling 9-8 Ben Flack
Semi Finals
Lee Clough 9-7 Ronan McCarthy
Chris Melling 9-2 Phil Harrison
Final
Lee Clough 9-7 Chris Melling