Irish Masters 1994

Irish Masters 1994 Benson & Hedges Irish Masters 1994
Tournament type:	Invitation tournament
Attendees:	12
Venue:	Goffs, Kill , Ireland
Opening:	March 22, 1994
Endgame:	March 27, 1994
Winner:	Steve Davis
Finalist:	Alan McManus
Highest Break:	141 ( Fergal O'Brien / Stephen Hendry )
← 1993   1995 →

The Benson & Hedges Irish Masters 1994 was a snooker tournament as part of the Snooker Main Tour of the 1993/94 season . The invitation tournament was held from March 22nd to 27th in Kill in the east of the Republic of Ireland. It was the 17th edition of the tournament in the Goffs arena in the municipality near the capital Dublin .

Defending champion Steve Davis reached the final again and for the second time in a row he met Alan McManus . The Scot missed the revenge, even if Davis only narrowly won 9: 8. With his 8th win, he expanded his tournament record in front of three-time winner Terry Griffiths . It was his third win this season.

Prize money

The organizer added £ 10,000 in prize money compared to the previous year. The winner got £ 3,000 more, places 2 to 4 had an extra £ 1,000, and the losers in the first two rounds made a difference of £ 500 and £ 350 respectively.

placement	Prize money
winner	£ 48,000
final	£ 28,000
Semifinals	£ 19,000
Quarter finals	£ 10,500
Round 1	£ 7,250
Highest break	£ 5,000
All in all	£ 190,000

Final round

The top 8 in the world rankings were invited to the tournament . There were also two local players, Ken Doherty and Fergal O'Brien , number 11 and 100 respectively in the world. And with Peter Ebdon and Ronnie O'Sullivan, two successful young players, who were only in their 3rd and 2nd year of professionalism, completed the field of 12 participants. The top 4 were set for the quarterfinals. The other participants played against each other in round 1 for the other quarter-finals. The tournament started in the mode Best of 9 , in the semifinals it was increased to Best of 11. In the final you then needed 9 frames to win (Best of 17).

	Round 1 (Best of 9)					Quarter Finals (Best of 9)					Semi-finals (Best of 11)					Final (Best of 17)
						1	Steve Davis	5
	8th	Terry Griffiths	1
						11	Ronnie O'Sullivan	2
	11	Ronnie O'Sullivan	5								1	Steve Davis	6th
											4th	Jimmy White	5
						4th	Jimmy White	5
	5	James Wattana	5
						5	James Wattana	2
	9	Peter Ebdon	1													1	Steve Davis	9
																6th	Alan McManus	8th
						3	John Parrott	2
	6th	Alan McManus	5
						6th	Alan McManus	5
	10	Ken Doherty	2								6th	Alan McManus	6th
											12	Fergal O'Brien	4th
						2	Stephen Hendry	2
	7th	Willie Thorne	1
						12	Fergal O'Brien	5
	12	Fergal O'Brien	5

final

The final was not only a repeat of the previous year's final, it was their fourth joint final since 1992. Steve Davis had won the previous three . In the previous year, Alan McManus had already defeated him in two Triple Crown tournaments. In addition, the Scot had achieved the greatest success of his career a month earlier with victory at the Masters . On the other hand, Davis was the record winner of the tournament and had won two tournaments in a row each time.

He was also very determined and got the first 4 frames of the afternoon. McManus took the next two frames after the break , one of them with a century break , but then the Englishman restored the old distance. Despite the 6-2 lead before the evening, it was not a one-sided game like last year. The first two frames of the second session went back to the Scotsman and after Davis was able to win another frame, the entire match went in the opposite direction. Frame by frame, McManus caught up, managed to equalize and a fourth frame to make it 8: 7. Another frame would have been enough for him to win, but the contested 16th frame went to Davis. And also in the decision-making frame, the Scot did not get more than 39 points, while Steve Davis got the last point with a 69-point break to the 9: 8 victory.

It was his 8th win at this tournament and only Joe Davis , who had been world champion 15 times, had won more times at the same professional snooker tournament. In 1982 Davis was the first finalist, in 1996 he reached a 10th and final time. From 1987 to 1994 he won 6 out of 8 possible titles.

Final: Best of 17 Frames Goffs,  Kill , Ireland , March 27, 1994
Steve Davis	9 : 8	Alan McManus
Afternoon : 89 : 1 (54), 72 : 30 (65), 80 : 0, 108 : 0 (105), 9: 84 , 12: 122 (118), 69 : 50 (59), 102 : 9 (101 ); Evening : 37: 99 (77), 63: 72 (54 Davis), 75 : 9 (52), 19:64 , 13: 111 (72), 0: 118 (87), 9: 79 (69), 89 : 40, 77 : 39 (69)
105	Highest break	118
2	Century breaks	1
8th	50+ breaks	5

Century breaks

Breaks of 100 or more points were achieved 9 times in the tournament, 5 of which were due to the two finalists. The highest Centurys go to Fergal O'Brien and Stephen Hendry , who both scored 141 points in one shot when they met in the quarter-finals. They shared the £ 5,000 break bonus.

Fergal O'Brien	141, 102
Stephen Hendry	141
Steve Davis	120, 105, 101
John Parrott	118
Alan McManus	118, 106

swell

1. ↑ Irish Masters. Chris Turner's Snooker Archive, archived from the original on February 16, 2012 ; accessed on October 31, 2019 (English). 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} 1994 Irish Masters - Finishes. CueTracker, accessed October 31, 2019 . 
3. ↑ 1994 Irish Masters. In: CueTracker Snooker Results & Statistics Database. Ron Florax, accessed October 31, 2019 . 
4. ↑ 1994 Irish Masters Results. In: Snooker Database. Retrieved October 31, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Rankings - 1993-1994. In: CueTracker Snooker Results & Statistics Database. Ron Florax, accessed October 31, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Chris Turner: On This Week. In: Eurosport . March 21, 1987, accessed October 31, 2019 .