Ricky Walden Joins 147 Club

Ricky Walden the 2008 Shanghai Masters champion realised another ambition of his today by making his first professional 147 break in his 4-1 win over Gareth Allen in PTC10. It comes just one day after David Gray made his 147 and is the 81th 147 in pro snooker history.

PTC10 - November 26-30 2011

World Snooker Academy, Sheffield

Ricky Walden is best known for coming through as a relative unknown and as a qualifier to beat Ronnie O'Sullivan 10-8 in the final of the Shanghai Masters in 2008 to claim his first ranking title of the 29-year-old's professional career.

Since then he hasn't reached a major final or won much else of note but today at the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield he reached another milestone of his career, his first every professional maximum break. What makes Ricky's 147 even more unusual is that it is the third in a week after Mike Dunn's in the German Masters qualifiers and David Gray's in PTC10 also.

He achieved this feat in the third frame of his last 128 (first round for him) match against amateur Gareth Allen who described his opponent as "class" and "unreal" on Twitter. Gareth would take a frame of Ricky but the Stamina Man eventually won the match 4-1 and went on to reach the last 16 later in the evening. (updated PTC10 results here.

It's good to see Ricky playing well again due to him having the season from hell last year, he struggled to find form in the PTC events and found himself slipping down the rankings, culminating in him losing 10-6 to Rory McLeod in the first round of the World Championship which saw him drop out the top 16.

More recently Ricky has reached the final of PTC6 and qualified for the last 32 of the UK Championship qualifiers so all seems to be going well for the player from Flintshire.

Congratulations once again to Ricky Walden, and all the best for the rest of the season.