The 2010 Masters (officially the 2010 PokerStars.com Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 10 and 17 January 2010 at the Wembley Arena in London, England. This was the first time that the Masters was sponsored by PokerStars.com.
The final was a repeat of the previous years' final, with Mark Selby playing against the defending championship Ronnie O'Sullivan. Unlike the previous year, Selby won his 2nd Masters title by defeating O'Sullivan 10–9 in the final after trailing 4–1, 5–3 and 9–6.
Field Defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan was the number 1 seed with World Champion John Higgins seeded 2. Places were allocated to the top 16 players in the world rankings. Players seeded 15 and 16 played in the wild-card round against the winner of the qualifying event, Rory McLeod (ranked 39), and wild-card selection Jimmy White (ranked 56). Rory McLeod was making his debut in the Masters following his win in the qualifying tournament; this to date is the last Masters to feature such qualifying tournament and the wildcard round in general.
Prize fund The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:
Qualifying stage Winner: £2,000 Runner-up: £680 Semi-final: £250 Quarter-final: £105
Televised stage
Winner: £150,000 Runner-up: £75,000 Semi-final: £34,000 Quarter-final: £16,000 Last 16: £14,000 Last 18 (wild-cards): £3,500
Highest break: £10,000 Maximum break: £25,000 Total: £486,000
Wild-card round In the preliminary round the wild-card players played the 15th and 16th seeds:
Match Date Score WC1 Monday 11 January (15) 6–2 WC2 Sunday 10 January (16) 6–2
Main draw
Final Final: Best of 19 frames. Referee: Jan VerhaasWembley Arena, London, England, 17 January 2010 Ronnie O'Sullivan (1) 9–10 Mark Selby (7) Afternoon: 35–81, , , , , , , Evening: 0–117 (54, 58), , , , , , , , , , 122 Highest break 129 2 Century breaks 3 8 50+ breaks 8
Qualifying The 2009 Masters Qualifying Event was held between 26 and 29 October 2009 at Pontins in Prestatyn, Wales. Rory McLeod earned a wild-card to the 2010 Masters, beating Andrew Higginson 6–1 in the final.
Century breaks Televised stage centuries A total of 20 century breaks were made during the event.
140, 121 Stephen Maguire 140, 101 Neil Robertson 132, 107, 102 Mark Williams 129, 112, 109 Mark Selby 122, 114, 106, 106, 101 Ronnie O'Sullivan 114, 104 Stephen Hendry 114 Mark Allen 106, 100 Shaun Murphy
Qualifying stage centuries A total of 12 centuries were made during qualifying for the event.
137 Barry Pinches 125 Judd Trump 120 Bjorn Haneveer 118 Matthew Selt 116 Jimmy White 111, 109 Anthony Hamilton 107, 100 Jamie Burnett 106 David Gray 105 Rory McLeod 100 Robert Milkins
References