THREE of the top four players on the NIBSA ranking list have reached the semi-finals of the season’s third ranking event, the 2024 Drumaness Masters.
The action continues on Tuesday (7.30pm) with an all-Tyrone clash between top-ranked Patrick Wallace from Dungannon and Coalisland’s Fergal Quinn, who is ranked four.
On the adjoining table, number two ranked and current Northern Ireland champion Darren Dornan, who plays out of the host club, will take on Belfast teenager Joel Connolly.
The winners will return to the County Down village on Wednesday evening for the decider. All games from this stage on will be best of nine frames.
Connolly, who has only ever been to this stage of a ranking event on one previous occasion, stole the show on Sunday, taking three big scalps with the loss of only one frame, including that of two former Northern Ireland champions - Joe Meara and Declan Lavery.
The latter was the only one to get on the board against him, in the quarter-final, and just for good measure he knocked out Lavery’s Antrim club-mate and number three ranked Raymond Fry in between.
Loughinisland man Dornan,who will take over the number one position if he beats Connolly, saw off Belfast’s Paul Lindsay (4-2) in the last eight after comfortable wins over Giles Kee (3-0) and Dermot McGlinchey (3-1).
The previous day, Quinn continued the fine form which saw him finally break his ranking tournament duck by winning at Blackstaff last month.
He beat Belfast’s Maurice McCusker (3-2), Ballycastle’s Sean Gray (3-1) and Hugh Murdock (4-1) from the host club, to progress, and included a 141 total clearance, making him a strong front-runner for the £100 high-break prize.
Wallace, who has had a slow start to the season, sneaked into the last four with a 4-3 win over Armagh’s Declan Hughes, a 59 break sealing victory in the decider after he had fallen 2-0 behind.
The Dungannon man had earlier enjoyed 3-1 wins over Leonard McConaghie and Connell Doherty.
The winner on Wednesday evening will pocket £800 and 225 valuable ranking points and also take home the Jimmy McGivern Memorial Trophy.
The event is the first in the newly-announced Triple Crown Series. There are 25 per cent of bonus ranking points available for it and for the European Qualifiers, which will take place after Christmas, while the third and final event is the season-ending Northern Ireland Championships, which will have an extra 50 per cent of points on offer.
