Bedford fails to take his chances (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Bedford fails to take his chances

10:07am Wednesday 15th October 2008 in Sport By Richard Bakes

Bradford's Simon Bedford certainly didn’t disgrace himself in a rare appearance in the televised stages of a major snooker ranking event, despite going down 5-1 to world No 9 Peter Ebdon in the last 32 of the Royal London Watches Grand Prix at the Scottish Exhibition Centre in Glasgow.

Bedford never really found his form, with nerves and missed opportunities taking their toll on the left-hander.

Ebdon took the first, after Bedford appeared to have done enough to lead 1-0, but with an excellent 33 clearance under pressure it was the Dubai-based former world champion who pinched it.

Bedford responded by taking the second to level the tie, but a superb 100 break put Ebdon back in front, and then won another scrappy frame heading to the interval.

Breaks of 34 and 41 soon put Ebdon 4-1 up, with the final frame conceded by Bedford after Ebdon had ground out another winning margin.

Bedford will look at this match and the tournament as a whole as valuable experience gained.

He did remarkably well to qualify by beating top players Liu Chuang, Andy Hicks, Mike Dunn and former world No 1 Mark Williams, considering Bedford still holds down a full-time job outside of the sport, with limited practice time.

Playing in the televised stages is what every player aims to achieve and Bedford is now looking forward to the qualifiers for the next tournament in a month's time.

The Yorkshire Inter-District Snooker League began at the weekend with Bradford No 2 hosting current Division One champions Bradford No 1 at the Manningham Ward Club.

The match was well contested, with Bradford No 1 racing to an early 2-0 lead, debutant Chris Melling firing in breaks of 52 and 104 inside 20 minutes against a stunned Gareth Green, who did very little wrong himself.

Boover Singh played some solid snooker, taking his first frame aided by a 32 break against Mark Slater, and appeared to have done enough to win the second, but some good fortune for Slater and excellent clearance of the last three colours sneaked the frame to put the defending champions 3-1 up.

If anyone expected Bradford No 1 to wrap up the tie, it certainly wasn’t Bradford No 2 captain Hanif Rafiq, who played outstandingly against another Bradford No 1 debutant Jason Walton, to win both frames, which included a fantastic break of 57 to level the tie at 3-3.

The 2008 Yorkshire Snooker Handicap will take place on Sunday at Cue Gardens, Stadium Road, Odsal.

The tournament is open to any amateur player with entry fee of £8, pay on the day. Registration is at 9.30am, with no entries being accepted after 10am.

Matches will be played over the best-of-five frames throughout, and if there are a large number of entries, quarter-finals to final matches will be played a week on Saturday from noon.

Normal Yorkshire dress code applies with no jeans, trainers or collarless t-shirts permitted. For further information, please contact me on 07940–651850.