Cooper and Firth take Pairs title.
The experienced Bradford duo of Wayne Cooper and Kevin Firth battled their way to the Yorkshire Snooker Pairs title yesterday after a full day of action at the Northern Snooker Centre.
The revised format of shorter matches in the early rounds with a plate competition for 1st match losers seemed to work well with the semi-final stage reached by mid-afternoon.
In the top half of the draw, Cooper/Firth had wins against Large/Dabell, Bagley/French and Jensen/Jackson before coming up against Michael Whaley/Josh Walker in the semi-final. The Bradford pair raced into a 2-0 lead before Whaley/Walker hit back to level. A tense final frame went down to the colours before Cooper stepped up to calmly clear green to pink to seal the victory.
In the lesser populated bottom half of the draw, Mark Ball and Ant Green saw off Leeds duo Malcolm Bilclough and Tony Massey before beating Harrogate’s Kaif Shazad and Liam Mills in the semi-final.
In a final played in great spirit, a 33 break by Cooper was enough to take the first frame before Ball/Green levelled. The next two frames were tight affairs but it was Cooper/Firth who took them both for a 3-1 win and with it the Pairs Trophy.
The day’s high break was a run of 62 by Michael Whaley.
In the consolation plate final Sheffield’s Shaun Wilkes and Dave Pagett defeated Harrogate pairing Ian Brotherton and Shab Ditta.
Thanks to Andy Kitson for officiating and to our sponsors the Northern Snooker Centre.
Results-
Prelims
Whaley/Walker 2-0 Hart/Broadhead
Boyes/Godfree 2-0 Hall/Hall
Knipe/Risidi 2-0 Binns/Cassidy
Wilkes/Pagett w/o Brookes/Pearson scr
Cooper/Firth 2-0 Large/Dabell
Bagley(56)/French 2-1 Walton/Kendall
1st Round
Whaley/Walker 2-1 Boyes/Godfree
Knipe/Risidi 2-1 Wilkes/Pagett
Cooper/Firth 2-0 Bagley/French
Jensen/Jackson 2-0 Hartley/McArdle
Shazad/Mills 2-0 Jones/Jones
Ishtiaq/Ishtiaq w/o v Batler/Drennan scr
Ball/Green w/o Matin/Munshi scr
Bilclough/Massey 2-1 Brotherton/Ditta
2nd Round
Whaley(62)/Walker 2-1 Knipe/Risidi
Cooper(56)/Firth 2-0 Jensen/Jackson
Shazad(59)/Mills 2-0 Ishtiaq/Ishtiaq
Ball/Green 2-1 Bilclough/Massey
Semis
Cooper/Firth 3-2 Whaley/Walker
Ball/Green 3-1 Shazad/Mills
Final
Cooper/Firth 3-1 Ball/Green
Paul Marlow
General Secretary & Tournament Director
