Australian Goldfields Open

Australian Goldfields Open
Tournament information
Venue Bendigo Stadium
Location Bendigo
Country Australia
Established 1979
Organisation(s) World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association
Format Ranking event
Total prize fund $500,000[1]
Current champion(s) Scotland John Higgins

The Australian Goldfields Open is a professional ranking snooker tournament. The reigning champion is John Higgins.

History

Australia had previously hosted the 1971 and 1975 World Snooker Championships, as well as several other high profile snooker tournaments and in 1979 the Australian Masters was established. There was an attempt to turn the event into a ranking tournament in 1989 but the sponsorship fell through so it was staged in Hong Kong instead, as the Hong Kong Open, which incidentally became the first ranking tournament to be staged in Asia. The Hong Kong event was discontinued after just one year, but returned to Australia in 1994 as the Australian Open. The tournament reverted to being called the Australian Masters for the following season, but was dropped from the calendar after the 1995 event. In 2011 the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association resurrected the event under the Australian Goldfields Open name and added it to the 2011/2012 calendar.

Winners

Year Winner Runner-up Final score City Season
Australian Masters (non-ranking)[2]
1979 Australia Ian Anderson South Africa Perrie Mans [n 1] Australia Sydney 1979/80
1980 England John Spencer Northern Ireland Dennis Taylor [n 1] 1980/81
1981 England Tony Meo England John Spencer [n 1] 1981/82
1982 England Steve Davis Australia Eddie Charlton [n 1] 1982/83
1983 Canada Cliff Thorburn Canada Bill Werbeniuk 7–3 1983/84
1984 England Tony Knowles England John Virgo 7–3 1984/85
1985[3] England Tony Meo Australia John Campbell 7–2 1985/86
1986 Northern Ireland Dennis Taylor England Steve Davis 3–2 1986/87
1987 Scotland Stephen Hendry England Mike Hallett 371–226[n 1] 1987/88
Hong Kong Open (ranking)
1989[4] England Mike Hallett New Zealand Dene O'Kane 9–8 Hong Kong Hong Kong 1989/90
Australian Open (non-ranking)
1994[5] Scotland John Higgins England Willie Thorne 9–5 Australia Melbourne 1994/95
Australian Masters (non-ranking)
1995[5] England Anthony Hamilton Scotland Chris Small 8–6 Australia Melbourne 1995/96
Australian Goldfields Open (ranking)[6]
2011[7] England Stuart Bingham Wales Mark Williams 9–8 Australia Bendigo 2011/12
2012[8] England Barry Hawkins England Peter Ebdon 9–3 2012/13
2013[9] Hong Kong Marco Fu Australia Neil Robertson 9–6 2013/14
2014[10] England Judd Trump Australia Neil Robertson 9–5 2014/15
2015[11] Scotland John Higgins England Martin Gould 9–8 2015/16

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 The finals were decided on aggregate score over three frames between 1979 and 1982 and five frames in 1987.

References

  1. Kalb, Rolf (29 June 2014). "Turnier-Infos: Australian Open" (in German). Eurosport Deutschland. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  2. Turner, Chris. "Australian Masters". Chris Turner's Snooker Archive. Archived from the original on 20 September 2010. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
  3. Hayton, Eric (2004). The CueSport Book of Professional Snooker. Lowestoft: Rose Villa Publications. p. 31. ISBN 0-9548549-0-X.
  4. Turner, Chris. "Other Asia Ranking Events". Chris Turner's Snooker Archive. Archived from the original on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
  5. 1 2 Hayton, Eric (2004). The CueSport Book of Professional Snooker. Suffolk: Rose Villa Publications. pp. 165–167. ISBN 978-0-9548549-0-4.
  6. "Hall of Fame". Snooker.org. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  7. "Stuart Bingham beats Mark Williams 9-8 to win Australian Open". BBC Sport. 24 July 2011. Archived from the original on 13 June 2012. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
  8. "Australian Goldfields Open (2012)". Snooker.org. Retrieved 4 June 2012.
  9. "Australian Goldfields Open (2013)". Snooker.org. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
  10. "Australian Goldfields Open (2014)". Snooker.org. Retrieved 23 May 2014.
  11. "Australian Goldfields Open (2015)". Snooker.org. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
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