The Welsh snooker player, Matthew Stevens, who was fighting for a second ranking title, was unlucky to come up against an impressive and tough competitor during the final of the Bahrain Championship last weekend.

His competitor for the title was Neil Robertson, the Australian snooker player who is currently ranked tenth in the world. Although Stevens played well throughout the closely fought match, Robertson asserted his dominance and eventually won by a score of 9-7.

The match started with little hint of the excitement which was to follow at a later stage. Robertson opened up a 3-0 lead, at which point he felt “unbelievable, I was playing like I do in practice”, but the Welshman managed to bring the score back to 7-6, largely as a result of good defensive play. However, this comeback simply served to spur on Robertson, who won the critical fourteenth frame and continued to win the match.

Although Robertson has only won three ranking titles during his career (with his previous successes coming in the 2006 Grand Prix and the 2007 Welsh Open), he has an impressive record of winning every final in a ranking competition he has managed to reach. The player was rewarded with a total of £48,000 for his efforts at the Bahrain Championship and he revealed that winning the competition was a “real privilege”.

Robertson’s record puts Stevens’ record in finals to shame. The Welshman has now lost a total of six out of seven finals and he revealed his disappointment at losing in Bahrain after the match: “I’m gutted to lose this one”.