Vinnie Calabrese Completes Q Tour Hat-Trick
Vinnie Calabrese defeated Hassan Kerde 6-5 in the final of the fourth WPBSA Q Tour Asia-Pacific event at the Mounties Club in Sydney, Australia.
The 37-year-old from Australia has now won three of the four events staged in the Q Tour Asia-Pacific series this season and extends his lead at the top of the ranking list as a result. The top ranked player in the series ranking list at the end of the campaign will be offered a place at the Q Tour Global Play-Offs, where three World Snooker Tour (WST) two-year tour cards will be on offer.
A total of 92 cueists from three nations embarked on the Mounties Club for the four-day event, known as the Bob Hawke AC Memorial Australian Open Snooker Championship and organised by the Asia Pacific Snooker & Billiards Federation (APSBF) and the Australian Billiards & Snooker Council (ABSC).
Calabrese began in the last 64 stage and the former professional kicked off in style with a tournament high break of 135 in the second frame of a 4-0 victory over fellow countryman Lupeni Kula.
The eventual champion dropped just four frames en route to the final as he overcame Brett Watson, Alex Ganji, Chi Kin Yeung and Adrian Law to reach his third Q Tour final of the campaign.
In a repeat of the final of the second Q Tour Asia-Pacific event back in August, Calabrese faced fellow Australian cueist Kerde in the title match after he defeated former professional Steve Mifsud in the last eight and then James Mifsud in the deciding frame of their semi-final contest.
Kerde was out for revenge in Sydney, having lost the event two final 4-2 to Calabrese, and he made a strong start as he moved into a 2-0 lead in the best-of-11 frame match.
Calabrese hit back in style with a break of 133, his third century of the tournament, to halve the deficit and managed to draw level for the first time at 3-3 with a further break of 97.
The 41-year-old Kerde took two of the next three frames to move one away from victory at 5-4, but Calabrese compiled a break of 87 at the vital moment to force a decider before getting over the line in frame 11 by a 110-38 scoreline to secure a hat-trick of Q Tour Asia-Pacific titles.
