Ali Carter picked the perfect moment to produce his best snooker of the week as he rallied from two frames down to claim victory over Marco Fu in the final of the German Masters in Berlin late Sunday.

The 33-year-old, who saw off Neil Robertson in the semi-finals, prevailed 9-6 in the best-of-17 match to claim the third ranking title of his career.

Carter trailed 5-3 after the opening session but emerged from his dressing room in the evening with all guns blazing, the Essex cueman opening with his first century of the week with a 116 before following up with a 121 to level at 5-5.

Fu, who defeated Barry Hawkins in the last four, fell just short of a 147 break earlier in the day as he began the final in fine form, but it was a different story following the resumption.

He failed to get on the scoreboard in either of the session’s opening two frames, and again failed to pot a ball in the next as Carter scored well to lead in the match for the first time at 6-5.

Hong Kong’s Fu eventually ended his potting drought after 86 long minutes before going on to take the 12th frame on the colours to draw level at 6-6 going in to the mid-session interval.

A fine 71 clearance saw Carter restore his lead, however, before he prevailed in a low-scoring 14th to move to within one frame of the title at 8-6.

With Fu’s safety game going awry along with his potting, the writing appeared to be on the wall and Carter duly did the necessary in the next, prevailing in another scrappy frame to claim the title, adding to his ranking wins at the 2009 Welsh Open and 2010 Shanghai Masters.

“It was tough out there,” Carter told reporters.

“Marco struggled a bit. We were both keen to put on a good show for the crowd, and I’m delighted to come out the winner at the end of the week.”