Ryan Day made it back-to-back tournament victories after triumphing at the Romanian Masters on Sunday and he is fancied to make a big splash at the Players Championship this week. Day won the Gibraltar Open just over a week ago, beating China’s Cao Yupeng 4-0 in the final, and he maintained his impressive form at the Bucharest Metropolitan Circus.
The Welsh star, who knocked out Barry Hawkins, John Higgins and Kyren Wilson to reach the Romanian Masters final, was involved in a thrilling final with Stuart Bingham. The 37-year-old trailed 4-0 early on but, after battling back to trail just 5-4 at the first interval, he managed to edge past his opponent with a 10-8 victory in the inaugural event. World number 17 Day was delighted to win consecutive tournaments and he is already looking forward to his title defence next year. “I didn’t play my best game but I fought as hard as I possibly could,” he was quoted as saying by worldsnooker.com. “I wasn’t at the races to start with so to finish the first session only 5-4 down was a bonus. “It’s a wonderful feeling to win two tournaments in a row. It has been a great experience all week here in Romania and I can’t wait to come back.”
Day has a tricky first-round clash against Mark Selby at the Players Championship on Tuesday and the Welshman is the 15/8 outsider to advance whilst his English opponent is the 1.40 favourite. The Romanian Masters champion is 16/1 to win the event in Llandudno whilst former world number one Ronnie O’Sullivan leads the betting at 7/5, just ahead of 10/3 chance John Higgins.