Bingham beats Williams for first ranking title

England’s Stuart Bingham came from behind to beat world number one Mark Williams in his first-ever final at the world-ranking Australian Goldfields Snooker Open tournament at Bendigo yesterday.

Bingham fought back from 8-5 down to win the last four frames and clinch a 9-8 victory in the best-of-17 match.

It topped an outstanding week for the 35-year-old from Essex who eliminated China’s Ding Junhui, a world championship semi-finalist this year, Tom Ford, Mark Allen and Shaun Murphy to reach his first final after 16 years as a professional.

Bingham, who beat defending champion Stephen Hendry at the 2000 World Championships, slumped to 76 in the rankings before fighting his way back to his current position of 15.

“Mark snookered me when I was eight frames to five down and I got out of it,” Bingham said.

“My body language changed and I felt ‘come on this is it, this is your chance’.”

Bingham, who won $65,000 for the inaugural Goldfields title, began with an opening break of 139, the best in the final.

Welshman Williams was chasing the 19th ranking title of his career and looked on course when he charged out of the evening interval at 4-4 to win three straight frames and lead 8-5 with four to play.

“I was 8-5 up and cruising, I was in control in the one frame and played a good snooker on him. He managed to get out of it, but from then on I didn’t really do much wrong,” Williams said.

“He played faultless stuff, some good breaks under pressure and I can’t do much about that.”