Wallace back to winning ways

PATRICK Wallace rolled back the clock over recent weeks at Daly’s in Derry where he won the fifth Northern Ireland ranking tournament of the season on Wednedsay night.

The 55-year-old Dungannon cueman has had a relatively disappointing year on the green baize, having been unable to follow a successful previous campaign when he won three tournaments.

This year, he has been a bit of a nearly man in the NIBSA tournaments, reaching one final and two semi-finals as his best snooker has evaded him.

But that all changed in Shantallow where the former World Championship quarter-finalist returned to form, dropping just three frames en route to collecting his maiden victory of the season.

In his quarter of the draw, he saw off Dean McAleese 3-0 in the last-64 before overcoming Anto Heaney 3-2 and then Martin Mullan 3-0 to set up a tough clash with Brian Milne in the quarter-finals.

Wallace cruised through that encounter 4-0 and he then vanquished Brockagh’s Fergal Quinn by the same margin in the last four before overcoming his old nemesis, Raymond Fry 5-1 in the decider.

And while delighted to get back to title winning ways, Wallace was most pleased with the fact his game was closer to where he wants it to be and those victories over World Amateur semi-finalist Quinn, and Fry, who has a better record than most against him,

“I’m really chuffed with the two wins [against Quinn and Fry] but I’m more pleased that I played well,” he beamed.

“I haven’t played well for a while. I haven’t had a terrible season, I’ve lost one final and two semi-finals and now I’ve had a win, which is pretty good.

“But I haven’t been playing great, although the tournament that I had one of my best  matches, the Blackstaff tournament [won by Quinn], I lost in the first round, 3-2 on the black but I had breaks of 68 and 114 against a very good player called Kieran McMahon.

“It’s strange how I haven’t been able to play that well in a lot of tournaments but I’ve managed to fight my way through to the semi-finals and that, and then one of the tournaments I played exceptionally well, I lost first round! It’s a funny old game.”

As well as rediscovering his form and his winning ways, Wallace also managed to get one over Fry, who has beaten him fairly regularly in recent years and he managed to do so without much practice after his wife, Tracey suffered a fall at their home, breaking her shoulder in two places in the process.

“I haven’t had much chance to put much work in for this tournament this week because unfortunately my wife fell and has two breaks in her shoulder,” he explained.

“It took a lot of pressure off my snooker and I went in with very low expectations because normally I would put in three or four hours the day before the semi-final and maybe two hours the morning before the final, but I did sort of half an hour each day, which is next to nothing for me.

“So I went in with low expectations and I was very relaxed and I did really well, so maybe there is a lesson to be learned there.

“I’ve lost count of the amount of times Raymond has beaten me in a row.

“He beat me in the final here last year when I was 3-0 up, beat me in the semi-final in Limavady when I was 2-1 up and 50 in front twice, he beat me in Limavady the year before and the Northern Ireland’s and I’m sure there are others I’ve accidentally on purpose forgotten about.”