Austrian elite blown away by Irish storm

"Richard is new to Austria. Unfortunately, he is not new to snooker," tournament director Dieter Simoncsics said with a good sense of humor. Simoncsics himself had become one of the victims to Richard McHugh's victory streak in Vienna. The former professional from Ireland made his first appearance in the Austrian Snooker League Grand Prix series and went all the way in impressive style to take the title.

As a newcomer to snooker in Austria, McHugh had to play an ASL Challenger tournament in his hometown of Innsbruck last month to qualify for October's ASL Grand Prix. The event was staged in Köö 7 in Vienna, which hosts the 15 Reds and is therefore the home club to most top players of Austria. Which, obviously, did not impress McHugh at all.

The 40-year old Irishman, who is a skiing addict and opened his own pub in Innsbruck called The Galway Bay a couple of months ago, got off to a good start as he outplayed all his opponents in the round-robin stage, including local favourite Bernhard Müllner, who had won this season's first ASL Grand Prix in Wels last month.

McHugh carried on by beating Georg Schlager 3-0 in the second round. In the quarterfinals, he faced another big name in Austrian snooker, Hans Nirnberger. Austria's No. 2 had knocked out last season's top-ranked Garry Balter by 3-1 in the previous round, and now brought the best out of McHugh. Nirnberger became the first player to win a frame against him -- which, of course, was not enough to stop his winning run.

In the semifinals, it was Simoncsics’ turn to get blown away by the Irish storm: a quick 4-0 on the scoreboard told the whole story. So, who was going to stop McHugh in the final?

In the other half of the tournament schedule, Vienna’s Ebrahim Baghi beat John Dangerfield 3-1 in a high-class encounter, and also Müllner advanced to the quarters thanks to a narrow 3-2 win over Thomas Auer. The match between the two reigning national champions, senior champ Baghi vs. general champ Müllner, was won by the older one, 3-1.

In the semis, Baghi faced young Daniel Potmesil, who had sursprised with a great run of results, including a 3-0 whitewash of last month’s ASL Grand Prix runner-up Sebastian Hainzl in the second round. He also had his chances against the more experienced Baghi, but was ultimately downed 4-1.

So it was Baghi who was to take on McHugh in the final. The Irishman got off to a nervy start and suffered a couple of surprise misses. Baghi built a useful lead, but was equalled on 45 after McHugh cleared the colours. On the respotted black, Baghi just missed an attempted double to a baulk corner, leaving McHugh an easy framewinner.

Baghi also got his chances in a scrappy second frame, but thanks to a 29 break, McHugh took that one as well, 2-0.

"I did not play well in the first two frames," McHugh admitted afterwards. "I was not nervous, but it is hard to play at the top of your game for two days long. Besides that, Ebrahim was just playing really well."

The Irishman then fired on all cilinders as he hit a well-constructed century, highly appreciated by the audience. He was on track for a 125 total clearance, but missing a straight-forward brown made the break stop at 103 -- his second ton of the tournament.

"It was a shame to miss that easy brown," McHugh said. "But I was so relieved to get the century, that my concentration slipped away. You just can’t afford to do that in snooker."

In the next, Baghi finally got a well-deserved frame on the board, though it was quite a struggle to clinch it. He was very unfortunate to snooker himself on the yellow with a stunning long pot on the blue after the final red, and later on he was unlucky to go in-off after knocking in a brilliant green. McHugh got the snookers he needed, but then completely failed to hit the final black, that was tight on the baulk cushion, ultimately handing over the frame to Baghi.

But McHugh did not allow his challenger to close in any further, and he convincingly took frame five and six, adding a nice 84 to his break list, to wrap up a 5-1 victory.

 "This is a great win for me as I have not competed in many tournaments in recent years," McHugh said after picking up his first ASL Grand Prix trophy. "It was nice playing here, with a great atmosphere and really good tables. But it was not as easy as it might have looked like. There are a bunch of really good players around here. I expect them to even further raise their game in the near future. And for sure, they all want to beat me now at next month’s ASL Grand Prix in Innsbruck."

2. ASL GRAND PRIX 2006/07

[Vienna, 21/10 - 22/10]

Results:

quarter-finals:
Richard McHugh - Hans Nirnberger 3-1
Dieter Simoncsics - Clausdieter Franschitz 3-1
Ebrahim Baghi - Bernhard Müllner 3-1
Daniel Potmesil - Christian Pleschko 3-2

semi-finals:
McHugh - Simoncsics 4-0
Baghi - Potmesil 4-1

final:
McHugh - Baghi 5-1

Break list:

- 105, 103, 84 Richard McHugh
- 81 Hans Nirnberger
- 74 McHugh
- 68 McHugh, Nirnberger
- 62, 62 McHugh
- 59 Alexander Pichler
- 56 McHugh
- 52 Thomas Auer

Click here for full tournament results.

© text & photos: Eric Willemsen [Vienna]