Tag: Riga Masters

STUART BINGHAM was very pleased with the feel of his new cue this month – and is now itching to use it in top-class action.

The 2015 world champion has been supplied bespoke equipment by the Cue Creator team, an American company which is headed up by the Sharp family and uses cues manufactured by McDermott Cues made in Menomonee Falls.

Bingham started using it on the practice table on the weekend and says it immediately had a positive impact on his game.

Ballrun said: “I got it after Riga and used it for practice and I knocked in a ton and four or five fifties, so it feels good. It just feels like it has a bit more life in it than my old cue, and I hope that margin of improvement can pay off for me.

STUART BINGHAM will be looking to sneak ahead in his all-square career head-to-head record with good friend Mark Davis in Latvia this week.

Ballrun, 41, and the Battler from Hastings, 44, have played 22 times and it is 11 wins apiece heading into the best-of-seven at the Kaspersky Riga Masters on Friday morning (June 23).

They can barley be split on frames won either, with Bingham on 76 and Davis 73 – or on the golf course for that matter.

Davis is world ranked number 37 and has reached four ranking semi-finals and has won the Six-Red World Championship three times, and Bingham is braced for another nip-and-tuck battle.

The world No 9, who beat Li Hang to book his place at the Arena Riga, said: “Mark is just a solid player, he is consistently seven out of ten and you just have to play very well to beat him. I guess that is why the record is so close.

“And we are good friends too, with go for meals together and our wives get on, and I share the same birthday as his son.

“I’ve played him at golf at few times in the past. It is pretty even there too, although I did used to get the better of him a bit when I was playing off five or six.”

STUART BINGHAM was left cursing some dreadful luck which saw his exit from the Riga Masters with defeat to eventual finalist Michael Holt.

Ball Run was 3-2 up in the first-to-four clash and in control of the frame he needed for victory when his promising crack at the first tournament of the season was ended at the last 16 stage.

He said: “How I lost from there is a joke – I felt it was a million to one shot he would beat me from there.

“I was 36 up after laying a snooker and just had to roll one in to stay on the black. There had been some kicks in the tournament but this one jumped on me and he pinched the frame to make it 3-3.

“Then he broke off in the next frame and left me shot to nothing and I got a really bad kick and he made 69 to win. I was left scratching my head to be honest.