Potts casts his own spell on the Magician

Two former World Champions clashed in the final of the second International Pool Tour for 2007. 2005 Champion Gareth Potts took on an in form Chris Melling at the Hinckley Island Hotel on Easter Sunday. Potts was trying to put an end to Mellings unbeaten start to the season having already claimed the first event of the New Year. Melling has been in devastating form of late, blowing away any player who has opposed him with his full on attacking play. Indeed nobody took more than five frames off of the Keighley cue man and that only happened the once, Tour number one Ronan McCarthy the culprit. Mellings style of play can be very intimidating for his opponents, but in Potts he met someone who that doesn't apply to. It was Melling, Potts defeated to claim his World crown so that added a bit of extra spice to the match. Out of the two players it was Chris who had, had by far the easiest passage to the final defeating Stuart Green, Rob Wilson and the already mentioned McCarthy to set up a last four clash with the surprise package of the weekend Shaun Brearley. Brearley showed the Tours strength in depth by coming from a lowly ranked 81 to reach his first major semi-final. Unfortunately for Shaun he didn't have much of a look in as Melling strolled to an 8-2 victory to claim his second final spot in a row. Potts however was pushed to the very limit narrowly beating Chris Rigby 7-5 in the first round; Gareth has had his problems with Chris before, last year he only scraped past him at Coventry 7-6, so he mustn't have enjoyed the draw at first look. Gaz then thrashed Matt Goodale 7-1 before winning arguably the match of the weekend. Aidan Owens back on the tour this year after a couple of seasons away was in tremendous form and pushed Potts all the way. With the match poised at 3-2 to Owens the standard from that point was scintillating. Every frame was finished form the break until the score reached 6-5 the Aidan came up dry and that was his last shot of the match. I'm sure he will never play that well and lose again. That seemed to give Pottsy the boost he needed he followed that win up with a 7-1 thumping of Jason Twist and back to back victories over Lee Clough and Steve Munro 7-4 and 8-5 respectively. That set up a dream final the flamboyant Chris Melling against the machine like Potts. As much as Melling tried however he couldn't dominate Potts like his other opponents and never really got close to his rival Gareth running out a comfortable winner. As the tour moves to Daventry the season is poised nicely to see who can claim the much coveted number one spot.