Stephen Lee takes the Welsh Open

Nobody was more surprised by Stephen Lee's return to the winners' circle than the newly-crowned Welsh Open champion himself.

Lee defeated Shaun Murphy, the reigning world champion, 9-4 at the Newport Centre to secure his first piece of silverware since he captured the 2002 Scottish Open.

There was nothing in his previous form this season to suggest such an outcome before the tournament began. Lee was rated 50/1 for the title after losing his opening match in the campaign's first three ranking tournaments.

In fact, the 31-year-old from Trowbridge had only won five frames in those three events.

But Lee, who had previously won three ranking titles and appeared in six finals, found his confidence gradually returning with each victory at Newport and demonstrated his class by getting the better of pre-final favourite Murphy.

It came as a shock to the world number 10, who had endured plenty of time spent kicking his heels this season because of a reduced circuit from eight events to six.

'To win five matches on the spin these days is very difficult,' Lee said.

'Everyone has been struggling because of the delays between tournaments. There's no consistency in anyone's game.

'Having breaks between tournaments means that if you lose your first match you have something like four weeks until your next match. You don't feel like going to the club to practise so long before a tournament.

'I was lacking a bit of belief and struggling to hold my concentration but it all came together this week.

'That's what you have to do in this game - hold yourself together and keep on believing. We can all do it on the practice table but to have to do it when it counts is what's tough.'

Lee began the week with a 5-2 victory over Glasgow's Drew Henry before beating Mark Selby of Leicester by the same score.

In the quarter-finals, he defeated Graeme Dott 5-2 before surviving a 6-5 thriller over Nottingham's Anthony Hamilton in the semis.

Just reaching the final eased any worries of relegation from the elite top 16. Lee had fallen to 17th following his nightmare start to the season but would have risen to ninth whatever the result against Murphy.

As it transpired, he made the perfect start by racing into a 4-0 lead, aided by a break of 120 in the fourth frame.

Murphy, 23, closed to 4-3 but the match turned Lee's way when he won the eighth after Murphy had missed the final black using the rest.

Without needing to produce his very best form, Lee won four of the evening session's five frames to pocket the Ł35,000 winner's cheque.

It means that all four ranking events this season have been won by different players, with John Higgins capturing the Grand Prix, Ding Junhui winning the UK Championship and Ken Doherty triumphing at the Malta Cup.

In addition, Matthew Stevens won the invitation Northern Ireland Trophy and Higgins was successful at the Wembley Masters.

The circuit moves on to Beijing later this month for the China Open, where Ding is defending champion.

The action then moves to Sheffield for the 888.com World Championship, which gets underway on April 15.

Sportinglife - 6/3/2006