Mark Williams Claims Third World Title – 15 Years After Winning Second…
By Chris Gaynor
18 years ago Mark Williams won his first World Championship. Three years later he won it again.
After that, there was a drought of World titles – but, incredibly, after 15 years and a 2017/18 season to die for, the 43-year-old Welsh Potting Machine has potted back with three ranking event wins, including the World Crown.
Williams said after to the BBC’s Hazel Irvine that a year ago his game was “crap”, quite frankly but after linking up with Steve Feeney of SightRight he really helped him out.
Williams is part of the class of 92 trilogy of players who have dominated the snooker scene for over 20 years and this season those three players, Williams, Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins have dominated the 2017/18 season in style.
They’ve taken 10 out of the 20 ranking events that have been put on as well as two of the class of 92 players, Higgins and Williams, appearing in the World Championship final.
For John Higgins, this was a seventh appearance in a World final and a second consecutive one after losing to Mark Selby last year. A winner in 2011, Higgins was on the hunt for his fifth title.
For Williams, his sterling season consists of winning…
The Northern Ireland Open
The German Masters
Betfred World Snooker Championship.
The 42-year-old Wizard of Wishaw, Higgins, has also had a successful 2017/18 campaign.
His duo of titles this season included…
The Indian Open
The Welsh Open
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[vc_separator]Williams, won the title 18 – 16 after a tremendous comeback from John Higgins from 15 – 10 down with three tremendous clearances in frames being 47 down and 58 down respectively, didn’t get the first chance in the remaining frames as it was Williams who put himself in the position to be World Champion.However, in frame 32 Williams had made a great break of 63 and was on the verge of winning before a missed pink to the corner meant that Higgins had to clear the table to pull it to 17 – 16.
And what did he do? He did it and cleared up with 65.
However, Williams, cool as a cucumber got a chance in Frame 34 and knocked in a calm 69 to win the 2018 Betfred World Championship for the third time.
He banked £425K which shifts his ranking from four spots up to World number three!
In fact, the rankings read now that the class of 92 trilogy are now…
World number 2 = Ronnie O’Sullivan
World number 3 = Mark Williams
World number 4 = John Higgins
There were 84 centuries in the event, two shy from the record of 86, and Higgins, who banked £180K for his runner-up gig, also bagged £10K for the high break prize – a 146.
He also was on for a maximum in the final, which would have bagged him an extra £40K!
This season, the World Champion Mark Williams has banked a whopping £870K in prize money from competing on the tour.
Was this a freak season or this is another illustration of the standard that the snooker youngsters have to compete with to win events?
Either way, these three haven’t finished winning yet!
