MARK Davis created a small bit of snooker history in the INEC, Killarney last Friday as he was crowned the first ever World Six Reds snooker champion after defeating former two time World Champion Mark Williams from Wales six frames to three in the final.

The inaugural tournament attracted 130 players from all over the World with players from all over Europe, the Middle East and South America giving a truly global feel to the event, with John Higgins, Stephen Hendry, Matthew Stevens and Ken Doherty some of the big names to feature at the INEC last week.

One name from the past also made an appearance in Killarney, none other that the legendary and notorious Alex 'The Hurricane' Higgins who despite not making it past the group stages, made a huge impact at last week's event according to tournament director Connie O'Sullivan.

"While he might not be competing competitive anymore, Alex was anxious to come down here and support the event and it was great to see after these years, the great esteem he was held in by all the players both professional and amateur," O'Sullivan told The Kerryman.

The final two days of the event were televised live on Eurosport with plenty of shocks along the way due to the short nature of the frames. The quarterfinals on Friday saw three Marks emerge to the semifinals with Davis, Williams and Marc King all advancing to the last four along with Barry Hawkins.

Williams won a tight affair with Adam Duffy (Ken Doherty's conqueror) 5-4 while King and Davis were comfortable 5-1 winners over John Higgins and Joe Swail respectively. Hawkins meanwhile was a 5-2 winner over Ryan Day.

The first semi-final saw King and Davis do battle and even though King appeared to be in control early on, leading 2-0 Davis would come back to emerge a 5-3 winner. The second semi-final saw a masterclass in potting by Mark Williams as the Welshman blitzed Barry Hawkins 5-0 to set up a final meeting with Davis.

The final saw both players share the first four frames two apiece before Davis took control winning the next three, aided by a superb break of 71 in the sixth frame to need only one more frame for victory. Williams kept his hopes alive by taking the eighth frame but Davis wrapped up victory with a break of 53 as not even firing the white ball off the table into a nearby TV screen could stop Davis from claiming a deserved victory.

Speaking afterwards Davis said he was delighted to be crowned the inaugural Six Reds World Champion. "I'm delighted and I just felt I got the luck at the right time because you definitely need it in this sort of quick fire format. I think Six Reds could really take off, you see the way other sports are trying to make their games more exciting to the general public and I don't think snooker should be any different," Davis said.

Following on from the success of the uniqueness of the inaugural event, Connie O'Sullivan feels that getting ranking status will be the next step for the event.

"Now that Barry Hearn is involved at the top of the sport I would be hopeful that this event could get grade two status just below the six ranking events they have in snooker at the moment, it may take a bit of time to achieve that but I would be hopeful it may become a reality in the next year or two."

- Jason O'Connor