{"id":8709,"date":"2026-03-02T03:50:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T22:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/02\/hawkins-beats-lisowski-to-win-first-welsh-open-title\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T03:50:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T22:20:02","slug":"hawkins-beats-lisowski-to-win-first-welsh-open-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/02\/hawkins-beats-lisowski-to-win-first-welsh-open-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawkins beats Lisowski to win first Welsh Open title"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Published18 minutes ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A dominant afternoon session set Barry Hawkins on the way to winning his first Welsh Open title as he beat Jack Lisowski 9-5 in the final.<\/p>\n<p>Hawkins won seven of the first eight frames at Venue Cymru in Llandudno to open up a seemingly unassailable lead.<\/p>\n<p>Lisowski won the first three frames of the evening session to threaten an unlikely comeback.<\/p>\n<p>But Lisowski&#x27;s fightback hopes took a blow in the 12th frame as a fluke-plant on a red began a break of 68 which moved Hawkins within one frame of the title.<\/p>\n<p>And two frames later, Hawkins ended his three-year wait for a rankings title, as the 46-year-old lifted the Ray Reardon trophy for the first time in his career.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It means the world,&quot; said Hawkins.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;ve came close a couple times last season. I&#x27;ve been knocking on the door for a little while so I feel like I deserved one.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Playing that man [Lisowski] is so scary &#8211; he pots balls from everywhere and you can&#x27;t leave them safe on the table.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#x27;s never over until it is over, and I&#x27;m delighted to get over the line because I was feeling it.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Hawkins, who was beaten by John Higgins in the 2018 final, took control early on, winning the opening frame with a break of 105.<\/p>\n<p>And although Lisowski drew level in the second frame, Hawkins would then go on to win six in a row.<\/p>\n<p>Another century break in the fourth frame came in between three half-century breaks of 67, 76 and 88.<\/p>\n<p>The afternoon ended with another Hawkins frame, as he led Lisowski 7-1 going into the tournament&#x27;s final session.<\/p>\n<p>Lisowski, who was playing in his first Welsh Open final, showed great fight when the game restarted, putting together back-to-back century breaks to remind his opponent there was still work to do.<\/p>\n<p>The 34-year-old then came out on top of a 40-minute frame which swung both ways to reduce Hawkins&#x27; lead to 7-4. <\/p>\n<p>But Lisowski&#x27;s momentum was ended in the following frame, as a long safety shot from Hawkins resulted in a red ball finding the bottom left pocket of the table.<\/p>\n<p>And Hawkins made the most of the opportunity, putting together a break of 68 to put him on the cusp of victory.<\/p>\n<p>Lisowski managed to win one more frame, with a break of 53, before Hawkins clinched the Welsh Open title in the 14th frame of the final.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I was very poor despite trying my best,&quot; said Lisowski.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Barry was by far the better player today and he deserves his win.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;He&#x27;s been great to me my whole career, even when I was very young. He&#x27;s always given me the time of day so I&#x27;m very happy for him.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Related topics<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/snooker\">Snooker<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/wales\">Wales Sport<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hawkins beats Lisowski to win first Welsh Open titleImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Barry Hawkins&#x27; previous appearance in the Welsh Open final came back in 2018Published18 minutes agoA d&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}