Fergal O’Brien is only hope for Ireland in 2011-12 PTC Grand Finals
Final leg of the 2011-12 Players Tour Championship (PTC) series, the 2011-12 PTC Grand Finals is set to begin at the Bailey Allen Hall arena in Galway, Ireland. The Irish spectators will be present at the arena hoping to see the only Irish potter, Fergal
O’Brien lifting the title. Brien will also be looking forward to hit the winning spot and keep the PTC glory home.
As usual, the lineup is mostly dominated by the English potters because the country has produced most of the talented snooker minds ever in the history of the sport. However, all Irish eyes will be on O’Brien to fulfil their hopes. He will be facing the
PTC 1 and PTC 12 finalist, England’s Joe Perry in his first match of the tournament.
O’Brien’s chances to win against the Englishman seem grim as the Irishman does not have a good track record against Perry. The baby faced, O’Brien, has played against Perry once before, in the fifth qualifying round of 2011 Australian Goldfields Open at
the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield, where he lost the match by an easy score line of 2-5.
Meanwhile, O’Brien’s individual performance in the current season is also comparatively lower than that of Perry. His match winning ratio after playing in 48 matches is 62.5 percent as he was able to win 30 matches. Meanwhile, Perry has participated in 51
matches with 33 wins to get the match winning rate of 64.7 percent.
As far as the frame winning frequency of both potters is concerned, O’Brien possesses 54.8 percent frame winning ratio while Perry holds a better rate with 58.1 percent frame wins in his campaign of 2011-12 Snooker Season. The odds here are definitely against
O’Brien but he might have the home advantage in the tournament which can be a stat changing factor for him.
On the other hand, the World Number one, England’s Mark Selby is also hoping for some support from the Irish fans because he believes he is also at least 10 percent Irish.
Speaking to World Snooker, Selby said in a light mood, “My wife Vikki has family from Carlow so I'd say that makes me at least 10 per cent Irish if it means some of the local fans getting behind me!”
The O’Brien-Perry clash is scheduled to commence on Wednesday, March 14 in the evening session.
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