Brian Morgan

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Brian Morgan
birthday 16th July 1968 (age 52)
nationality EnglandEngland England
professional 1989-2006
Prize money £ 478,633
Highest break 146
Century Breaks 54
Main tour successes
World championships -
Ranking tournament victories -
Minor tournament victories -
World rankings
Highest WRL place 27 (1995/96, 1998/99)

Brian Morgan (born July 16, 1968 ) is an English snooker player from Essex . From 1989 he played as a professional on the Main Tour for 17 years .

Career

Up and down the first years of professionalism

At the age of 16, Brian Morgan played in the tournaments of the WPBSA Pro Ticket Series to get on the professional tour, but initially unsuccessfully. In 1988 he became world champion in the U21 age group. A year later he made it to the professional play-offs and then won the decisive game against Pascal Burke 9-0. So he played his first professional season in 1989/90 . In the very first tournament, at the Hong Kong Open , he reached the round of the last 32. At the International Open he even made it to the quarter-finals a little later, defeating the 8th in the world rankings , the Northern Irishman Dennis Taylor , with 5: 4. World champion Steve Davis was too strong for him. At the Classic 1990 he reached the round of 8 again and was eliminated again by Davis. He started his career at number 42 in the ranking. However, he was unable to confirm this in the following two years. In the second year it was not until the World Cup that he even won a match again. The following year he won again regularly, but did not get past the last 32. In the meantime, it fell back to 61st place.

In the 1992/93 he was actually not more successful at the tournaments with two exceptions: the second tournament of the Strachan Challenge and the World Championship . In the Challenge tournament, he reached the semi-finals and thus a new record in professional tournaments. However, it was a tournament with reduced ranking points. After all, he defeated players like Silvino Francisco and Mick Price . At the World Cup he beat Alex Higgins 10-1 in the last 64 , which made headlines mainly because the eccentric Northern Irishman then accused him of having been doped. In the next round, Morgan beat Silvino Francisco again and moved into the main round at the Crucible Theater for the first time . There he lost his first match 5:10 against Neal Foulds . The following year he reached a semi-finals again, at the Benson & Hedges Championship he defeated, among other things, the world number 20. Tony Drago and only lost to Ronnie O'Sullivan in the semifinals . However, there were no ranking points for the qualification tournament. The more points he got for it at the World Cup . With a win over Dean Reynolds , he came to the Crucible for the second time and there he defeated world number 12 Martin Clark with 10: 9 and 57:41 in the decisive frame. Reaching the round of 16, which he lost 9:13 to James Wattana , was his best World Cup result. Further top 32 and top 48 results were added over the course of the season and so he made it into the top 32 of the ranking for the first time. The following year he reached three tournaments, including the two most important, the UK Championship and the World Cup , the round of 32 and 1995 with 27th place his highest career placement.

Top 32 years

A bad season followed, in which he only finished in the last 32 at the Thailand Classic and otherwise lost all opening matches. But already in 1996/97 he made up for everything. At the first tournament, the Asian Classic , which was also held in Thailand , he was in a final of a ranking tournament for the only time in his career. He beat a row of top players like Tony Drago, Jimmy White , Ken Doherty and even the world champion and world number one Stephen Hendry and in the final only after a long fight he was defeated 8: 9 by Ronnie O'Sullivan . Immediately afterwards he won the Benson & Hedges Championship, this time beating Drew Henry in the final with 9: 8. The victory gave him a wildcard for the 1997 Masters . Another win over Tony Drago he came to the last sixteen, where he lost to Stephen Hendry this time. After that, the results eased again, but at the World Cup he made it to the Crucible a fourth time. The next year he confirmed his performance with further top 32 results and returned to number 27 in the world rankings.

In the 1998/99 season there were more highlights again. At the Grand Prix he made it to the round of 16. After the turn of the year he repeated the result at the Scottish Open . He came one lap further at the British Open, among other things after beating the world rankings 8. Alan McManus . The following year the China Open was the highlight, where he was in a semi-finals for the second time in his career with a victory over Steve Davis , which he lost to Ronnie O'Sullivan 5: 6. The individual successes were contrasted with increasingly weaker results in the other tournaments, so that he made no progress in the ranking, but even moved slightly backwards. In the 2000/01 season he finally fell out of the top 32 again. Although he reached the quarter-finals at the Grand Prix after victories over Stephen Hendry and with Peter Ebdon another top 16 player and was in the round of 16 of the UK Championship after defeating John Parrott , on the other hand he also lost his opening match 6 times. At the 2001 World Cup he lost for the fourth time in a row the decisive game for entry into the main tournament by a 9-10 defeat against Nick Dyson, who was far behind him .

End of career

In the next few years he fought more to remain in the top 64 than to return to the top regions. With individual successes such as the round of 16 at the Welsh Open 2002 , the British Open 2002 and the Irish Masters 2004 , he repeatedly saved the season balance. In addition, he managed to make it into the round of the last 32, overall he placed 39 times in the ranking tournaments in the last 32 or better in his career, but could not win any tournament. He finished two professional tournaments without ranking points victorious, after the Masters qualification in 1996 he won a tournament of the smaller WSA Open Tour in 2001 with a 5-2 victory over Leo Fernandez in the final. In 2004/05 , however, he did not reach the bottom 32 in any tournament and only won 2 games and when he did not see a second round in 2005/06 in only 6 ranked tournaments left, he fell out of the top 64 and lost with 38 Years of professional status.

Morgan made no attempt to return to the main tour either. He had completed his pilot training and became a commercial pilot with an airline. In fact, he also got his friend and training partner Ali Carter to acquire a pilot's license, for which he was nicknamed The Captain.

It wasn't until the professional tour became more attractive again in 2010 that he took part in the PIOS qualification tour again and at least reached one of the last sixteen. He also played in three tournaments of the Players Tour Championship in 2011 and survived the amateur qualification at the Kay Suzanne Memorial Trophy and got into the main tournament.

successes

Ranking tournaments:

Other professional tournaments:

Amateur tournaments:

swell

  1. ↑ a b c Profile of Brian Morgan at CueTracker (as of March 18, 2018)
  2. Jump up ↑ J. Hennessey: Alex Higgins: Snooker Legend: Eye of the Hurricane. (Excerpt from Google Books). Random House, May 24, 2013, accessed March 18, 2018 .
  3. ^ Sky's the Limit for Pilot Ali. Mirror, April 28, 2007, accessed March 18, 2018 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Morgan, Brian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English snooker player
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1968