The 1998 Skoda Grand Prix was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 14 and 25 October 1998 at the Guild Hall in Preston, England which formally hosted the UK Championship for 20 years until 1997. The Bournemouth International Centre which hosted the last two Grand Prixs would swap places with the Guild Hall.
Dominic Dale was the defending champion, but he lost his last 64 match against Robin Hull.
Stephen Lee and Marco Fu both contested a ranking tournament final for the first time in their careers, Fu in his first tournament as a professional being ranked 377 at the time of his final appearance; the lowest ranked finalist at any ranking event. Lee prevailed 9–2 to claim his first ranking title.
Tournament summary
Defending champion Dominic Dale was the number 1 seed with World Champion John Higgins seeded 2. The remaining places were allocated to players based on the world rankings.
Prize fund The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:
Winner: £60,000 Runner-up: £32,000 Semi-final: £16,000 Quarter-final: £9,100 Last 16: £4,600 Last 32: £2,600 Last 64: £2,225
Stage one highest break: £1,100 Stage two highest break: £5,000 Total: £370,000
Main draw
Final Final: Best of 17 frames. Referee: John Newton. Preston Guild Hall, Preston, England, 25 October 1998. Marco Fu (377) 2–9 Stephen Lee (10)Afternoon: 8–115 (50), 0–128 (128), 17–75 (75), 0–130 (66, 64), 82–4 (82), 33–99 (66), 0–77 (70), 85–12 (85)Evening: 0–107 (90), 1–93 (57), 5–106 (106) 85 Highest break 128 0 Century breaks 2 2 50+ breaks 10
Century breaks
139 Peter Ebdon 134 Ronnie O'Sullivan 129 Martin Clark 128, 126, 106, 104 Stephen Lee 123 Marco Fu 121, 111, 110 Quinten Hann 121 John Parrott
120 Tony Drago 115, 107 Chris Small 110 Dene O'Kane 108 Stephen Hendry 106 Jason Ferguson 104, 103 Dave Harold 104, 102 Mark Williams
References