Hossein Vafaei stuns Mark Williams to win Snooker Shoot Out and become first Iranian to win ranking tournament

ByAlex Livie

Updated 23/01/2022 at 23:46 GMT

The Snooker Shoot Out served up four cracking days of action, with the spectators at the Morningside Arena revelling in some brilliant snooker. Home favourite Mark Selby was knocked out in the last 32. Selby's fellow world champion Mark Williams made it all the way to the final to face Hossein Vafaei and it was the Iranian who emerged victorious.

Hossein Vafaei became the first Iranian winner of a ranking tournament when beating Mark Williams in the final of the Snooker Shoot Out.

Vafaei, who suffered a family bereavement earlier in the week, produced brilliant play at the Morningside Arena. He kicked off the event with a break of 123, which proved to be the high break of the week and was worth £5,000, and carried that form all the way through.

His one scare came in the semi-finals, and he appeared down and out as Liang Wenbo raced into a 48-point lead, but miscued on a routine black. The miscue was so bad, Liang missed the black completely and the foul handed ball-in-hand to Vafaei who made no mistake to book his spot in the final.

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"It was a diabolical miscue, and devastating for him,” Jimmy White said on Eurosport. "He might even have gone on to make the highest break of the tournament.”

In the final, Williams played one shot - the break - and that was it as Vafaei crunched in a long red and picked off a break of 71 to win the title.

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Williams was bidding to become the first player to win the Snooker Shoot Out and World Championship but like Graeme Dott (twice) and Mark Selby, fell at the final hurdle of doing the snooker equivalent of winning a marathon and the 100 metres.

The Welshman said he treated the Shoot Out as a bit of fun, which was the case given he had been travelling to and from the event with friends on a coach, but at the table he was deadly serious and was impressive over the course of the event. He did not adopt the Mark Williams break, but may wish he had done as Vafaei picked off the loose red in stunning fashion.

"I thought I played a decent break, but what a brilliant red that was," Williams said on Eurosport.

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