FERGAL Quinn finally won his first NIBSA ranking tournament, beating Anto Heaney 5-3 in the final of this season’s second event at the Blackstaff Snooker Club in Belfast.
The Coalisland man, who went into the tournament number five on the ranking list, has had many near-misses in recent years but has now finally been rewarded for his consistency.
It had looked like plain sailing for him as he opened up a 4-0 lead with some solid snooker, the highlight of that winning streak being a break of 115 in frame three, his third century of the tournament.
However, Heaney, from the host club, made Quinn fight hard to get over the line, winning three frames in a row before coming out second best in a prolonged safety battle in frame eight.
‘’I’m buzzing to finally get the win after losing four or five finals,’’ said Quinn.
‘’One of them was 5-4 on the black so memories of that were coming back to me when Anto got it back to 4-3.
‘’In saying that I didn’t do much wrong between 4-0 and 4-3, it was more Anto played well. But I just kept believing and fell over the line.’’
Earlier, Quinn had won his quarter-final and semi-final without dropping a frame against Shea Valentine of Drumaness and Newry’s Kieran McMahon respectively, while Heaney had whitewashed Antrim’s Ryan McQuillan in the last eight, before beating Northern Ireland champion Darren Dornan of Loughinisland 4-1 in the semi-final.
The next ranking event will take place in Drumaness, starting on November 23.
