Brilliant Davis wins world title

The St Leonards cueman beat Shaun Murphy 8-4 in the final yesterday (Saturday) to collect a cheque for 2,000,000 Baht (around £40,000), the biggest pay day of his career.

He told www.worldsnooker.com: “It’s about time I won something. My trouble has been a lack of self-belief. Hopefully now I can now make progress up the rankings and win one of the majors on the way.”

Davis has made a superb start to the season, reaching the semi-finals of a ranking event for the first time in his 21-year professional career at last week’s Wuxi Classic, and now adding this invitation title in Thailand.

He took the opening frame with a break of 72 only for 2005 world champion Murphy to claim the next two. World number 18 Davis then restored his one-frame lead, but Murphy drew level.

At 3-3, Davis won a tight frame 31-30 only for Murphy to again immediately peg him back. After that, however, Davis pulled away. He won four straight frames, including two with breaks of 59 and the final with 55.

Davis began the week by winning four of his five matches to come second in his group. He then saw off namesake Steve Davis 6-1 and came from 4-2 down to edge out Stephen Lee 6-5 in the last 16 on Thursday.

The 39-year-old got the better of home hope Panompai Powises 7-5 having been 5-1 up in the quarter-finals before producing a splendid display to outgun Ricky Walden 7-2 in the semi-finals on Friday.

Davis is something of a six red specialist having won a world title in the same format in Ireland in 2009. See next Friday’s Hastings Observer for the full article.