Pro-Am Snooker - 2017 Italian Snooker Open

​27th-29th January 2017 / Bolzano, Italy

​O'DONNELL'S ITALIAN TAKE AWAY

Current main tour professional Martin O'Donnell claimed the 2nd Italian Snooker Open this past weekend in Bolzano. 

Perhaps you may not associate Italy with having a snooker heritage, but in recent times the country has started to stage structured events such as this and a national championship.

Englishman O'Donnell was the only active professional in the field with amateurs representing the host nation, Austria, Germany, Iran, Pakistan and Switzerland also taking part.

O'Donnell qualified from his round robin group to make the Last 16 knock-outs. There he beat Jan Egermann (Austria) 3-1, Norbert Eckstein (Germany) 3-0, Jurgen Kesseler (Germany) 3-1 to reach the final.

He would meet the in-form former Q-School graduate Alexander Ursenabcher (Switzerland) in the final. 

Ursenbacher earlier in the month made a 147 maximum break on his way to winning the International 3 Kings Open in Austria.

​However, O'Donnell won the match 3-2 after Ursenbacher had forced a decider having been 1-0 and 2-1 down.

The champion took the 1,000Euros first prize; he also made the tournament's highest break with an effort of 118.

For more information, and the full results, please visit the Italian Snooker website here.

Written and published by Michael Day on the 30th January 2017

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