Tom Ford (snooker player)

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Tom Ford
Tom Ford
birthday 17th August 1983 (age 37)
place of birth Glen Parva , Leicestershire
nationality EnglandEngland England
professional 2001/02, since 2003
Prize money £ 888,248 (as of August 30, 2020)
Highest break 147 (5 ×)
Century Breaks 226 (as of August 30, 2020)
Main tour successes
World championships -
Ranking tournament victories -
Minor tournament victories 2
World rankings
Highest WRL place 21 (August – September 2013)
Current WRL location 24 (as of August 17, 2020)

Tom Ford (born August 17, 1983 in Glen Parva , Leicestershire ; actually Thomas Edward Ford ) is an English snooker player from Glenfield near Leicester .

Career

Youth and Beginnings

Even as a child, Tom Ford played at home on a simple table with his father and brother. At the age of 8 he was promoted by Willie Thorne and his brother Malcolm and trained on his club tables. He's the same year as Mark Selby and they played together for a while. At the age of 13, Tom Ford had his first major success in the youth field when he became the English U-15 champion. In 2001 he became English U-18 champion with a final victory over Judd Trump . At the age of 18, he also took part in the Challenge Tour for the first time to qualify as a professional for the Snooker Main Tour . Right at his first appearance at the 2001 World Snooker Championship , he drew attention to himself when he made it into the last 128 with victories over Martin Gould , Rory McLeod and Scott MacKenzie, among others . As a result, he also had the right to start in the 2001/02 season , where he was already able to celebrate some respectable successes. At the LG Cup he successfully took revenge on Barry Pinches , who had previously been at the end of the World Cup. At the China Open he defeated another experienced professional with Adrian Gunnell and at the 2002 World Cup he scored his first two Centuries as a professional and lost just under 9:10 to Mark Selby.

Because of this defeat he could not defend his Main Tour place and therefore he had to return to the Challenge Tour the following season. At the very first tournament in Mansfield he reached the final, where he lost 6-2 to Chris Melling . But he also collected a few points in two other tournaments, so that he took second place in the overall standings and returned to the professional tour. He also appeared again at the World Cup and survived the preliminary rounds. With wins over Roory McLeod and Kristjan Helgason , he made it into the last 80 for the first time. In his second professional year he was able to confirm the performance. His biggest achievement was reaching the round of 32 at the British Open , beating Alfie Burden , Brian Morgan and top 32 player Ian McCulloch . At the UK Championship 2003 he missed the main tournament of the last 48 by just one win. He also collected points at the Irish Masters and with a win over Martin Gould at the World Cup and was already 74th in the world snooker rankings after the 2003/04 season .

The following year he made it into the main tournament at the UK Championship and was only just eliminated in the decision frame with 8: 9 against Ali Carter in round 1. At the Welsh Open , he also reached the round of the last 48 and then at the Malta Cup he was in the quarter-finals of a world ranking tournament for the first time. With Chris Small and Ken Doherty he had defeated two top 16 players and only against Stephen Hendry he was eliminated from the tournament. At the China Open , he defeated another top player with Joe Perry and once again reached a main round. Only at the 2005 World Cup did he not get past the last 80 again. In the world rankings he improved to 51st place. In the 2005/06 season he was able to win his opening game in almost all tournaments, but was eliminated after that at the latest. After all, this meant that he was among the last 64 for the first time at the 2006 World Cup . In the world rankings he barely improved, but he slipped into the top 48, which saved him another qualifying round in the world rankings. He commuted around this limit for the next four years.

Stagnation and promotion to the top 32

The new season started in 2006 with many defeats. Also at the Grand Prix he won only two of the five games in the group stage, one of which was against Peter Ebdon , a top 8 player. His first tournament success was reaching the round of 16 at the Malta Cup . At the China Open he reached the final tournament for a second time, but lost in the wildcard round in Beijing . The 2007/08 season began like the previous one with two opening defeats. And at the Grand Prix, despite a win over Steve Davis, he didn't get past the group stage. The game against the former world champion was a very special one, as he had been in the hospital that morning with gastrointestinal problems and had discharged himself. He not only won the match 4-0, he also scored 3 Centurys and one of them was the first maximum break of his career. After that he reached the round of 32 at the Northern Ireland Trophy, which was held for the first time as a ranking tournament . This result he just missed at the subsequent UK Championship after a 8: 9 defeat by Jamie Cope . In the following year he was among the last 32 at the Shanghai Masters for the first time. In the other tournaments he lost early, at the 2009 World Cup he won his opening match again after three years and thus reached the round of 48 for the first time.

The 2009/10 season started again mixed, but the UK Championship brought him new impetus , where he reached the final round for the first time. He also reached the round of 32 at the Welsh Open in January 2010. He also took part in the Pro Challenge Series , a series of tournaments that is not relevant to the world rankings. There he reached the second round twice. The highlight of the season for him was the 2010 World Cup . After clear victories over David Hogan , Anthony Hamilton and Judd Trump , he was in the final round for the first time. He lost his first game at the Crucible Theater to Mark Allen 4:10. This also brought him forward again in the world rankings, where he moved up to 41st place.

The 2010/11 season saw major changes in the tournament calendar, not just an increase in world ranking tournaments, but also the introduction of the Players Tour Championship , a series of minor ranking tournaments. Tom Ford accepted these small tournaments, which were played consistently on four winning frames, very well and reached the quarter-finals at the first PTC event in Sheffield. At the third tournament in the same place he reached the final and won his first smaller Main Tour title with a 4-0 win against Jack Lisowski . At the Brugge Open and the Ruhr Championship 2010 he reached the round of 16 again. So he qualified for the PTC Grand Finals , but lost the opening match against Anthony Hamilton there. In addition, he was able to repeat his entry into the finals at the UK Championship again, but there were no outstanding results at the other main tournaments, so that at the end of the season he missed making it into the top 32 in the world by two places. The following year, the round of 16 at the newly introduced Australian Goldfields Open was his first success of the season. And at the UK Championship he made it back to the finals. In addition, the PTC tournaments remained, at the eleventh tournament in Sheffield he reached the final again after defeating Judd Trump and Graeme Dott and won his second PTC title with a narrow 4-3 victory over Martin Gould . With two rounds of 16 at the Welsh Open and the World Open , he collected enough world ranking points to make it into the top 32 in the world for the first time in 2012.

The most successful years

In the 2012/13 season , Ford repeated its round of 16 in Australia . He had previously reached the same round at the 6-Red World Championship 2012 , a special-format invitation tournament. At the Players Tour Championship he reached the semi -finals in Zhengzhou and the quarter-finals in Sofia at the Bulgarian Open . In the third round of the tournament he scored his second maximum break against Matthew Stevens . With these results he qualified for the third time for the PTC Grand Finals and this time he made it to the semi-finals with victories over Mark Joyce , Allister Carter and Marco Fu . It was his best result in a full world ranking tournament to date. At the UK Championship , he also reached the finals for the fourth time in a row. In the other tournaments of the season he could not add any special results, so that he was only able to improve by two places in the world rankings and achieved his best end-of-year placement with 24th place. The 2013/14 season began promisingly with the quarter-finals at the Australian Goldfields Open by defeating defending champion Barry Hawkins and after minor PTC successes such as the second round at the Bluebell Wood Open , he rose to the intermediate ranking of the 2013/14 world snooker rankings in September 2013 up to 21st place, the best position of his career. But this was followed by setbacks such as the first round defeats at the Shanghai Masters , the International Championship and above all the UK Championship and the China Open . And despite a quarterfinal at the 2014 Dongguan Open , he missed the PTC Grand Finals for the first time. The second best result outside of the PTC was reaching the round of 32 at the Indian Open , which, however, was one of the tournaments with the lowest valuation along with the Australian Open. Ford could only prevent a deeper crash in the world rankings because he reached the finals at the Crucible for the second time in his career at the world championship after victories over Luca Brecel and Matthew Stevens. He played there against last year's semi- finalist Judd Trump and kept the game open until 8: 8 before Trump secured and won two contested frames.

Relegation and late successes

The 2014/15 season Ford began just at No. 32, but the winless preseason continued. In the first half of the season until the turn of the year, he achieved only two wins. Even at the PTC tournaments there were only first round defeats. The only outlier in the entire season was the Xuzhou Open in January 2015: He reached the semifinals at the PTC tournament in China. Before the World Cup , there was even a threat of falling from the top 64 and thus the end of membership in the Main Tour. With wins over Andrew Norman and David Gilbert , he was able to save himself in 59th place at the end of the season. Despite a false start in the next season, the Riga Open was followed by another great sense of achievement in the first PTC tournament. After beating world number nine Joe Perry in round 2, he fought his way through to the final and only his compatriot Barry Hawkins prevented his third PTC victory. At the Shanghai Masters he then reached the finals of a major tournament once again. Even if he kept leaving early, he was still collecting points regularly. The highlight was the 2015 UK Championship , where he defeated Mark Williams and Kyren Wilson and made it to the round of 16 for the first time in his career. In the one-year ranking he was then among the top 32 and was thus qualified for the World Grand Prix , where he defeated world number one Mark Selby 4-2 in round 1 . It was his only win against his former youth comrade. He also achieved good results in the last Players Tour Championship and qualified again for the Grand Finals , where he lost the opening game. In the final tournaments of the season he lost in round 2, but then he was back in 43rd place in the world rankings and thus had further membership in the Main Tour.

Tom Ford started his 15th professional season in 2016/17 with two defeats before coming back to the last 32 at the World Open . At the Paul Hunter Classic 2016 he celebrated his greatest success outside of the Players Tour Championship. The tournament was still played according to PTC rules, but had received full tournament status this season. He moved into the final and was defeated there by world champion Mark Selby 2: 4. At the European Masters and the English Open he reached the second round twice in a row and after reaching the second final round at the International Championship he was back in the top 32 of the world rankings. This was followed by first-round defeats before he achieved a second win of the season at the German Masters in Berlin. He defeated Judd Trump in the qualification and Mark King in the round of 16 and was only eliminated in the quarter-finals against the later finalist Ali Carter. In the game against Peter Ebdon he also managed the third 147 break of his career. He was only the 12th player to score three official maximums.

successes

Tournament victories

Final participation

Other titles

  • English U-15 junior champion (1996)
  • English U-18 junior champion (2001)

swell

  1. ↑ a b Profile of Tom Ford on Cue Tackers.Retrieved August 24, 2018
  2. ↑ World Rankings after the Paul Hunter Classic (ET4) 2013 (PDF; 68 kB) In: worldsnooker.com . World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association . August 27, 2013. Archived from the original on December 13, 2014. Retrieved on August 27, 2013.
  3. ↑ The Parish of Glen Parva (Word file, 420 kB), Glen Parva Parish Council, April 25, 2014
  4. ↑ Thomas Edward Ford ( memento of February 19, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), entry at Hello Pages, accessed on February 18, 2017
  5. ↑ Tom Ford - Exclusive Interview , On Cue, August 16, 2010
  6. ^ Ford's new designs for the baize , Mark Ashenden, BBC Sport, April 15, 2010
  7. ↑ Top 10 147’s , guffo.cz, accessed on February 18, 2017
  8. ↑ Tom Ford with a 147 break in Bulgaria , SnookerPRO, November 17, 2012
  9. ↑ Leicester's Tom Ford hits maximum 147 break against Peter Ebdon at German Masters snooker  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Jon Paul, Leicester Mercury, February 2nd, 2017@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.leicestermercury.co.uk  

Web links

Commons : Tom Ford  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Ford, Tom
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ford, Thomas Edward (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English snooker player
DATE OF BIRTH 17th August 1983
PLACE OF BIRTH Glen Parva , Leicestershire , England