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Ricky Walden

After a strong start to the 2009/10 season, Walden tailed off and missed out on fulfilling his ambition of securing a place among the top 16 for the first time.
At the Roewe Shanghai Masters he was defending the title, and made a good fist of that by beating Mark King and Stephen Hendry to reach the quarter-finals, only for Liang Wenbo to end his run.
He played King again in the last 32 of the Grand Prix and looked set for victory when he led by 31 points on the brown in the deciding frame, but failed to escape from two snookers then saw his opponent clear the table, losing 5-4.
Walden also got to the last 32 of the Pukka Pies UK Championship, losing to John Higgins, and that proved the turning point in his season as he failed to win a match in the last three ranking events.
The Betfred.com World Snooker Championship qualifiers saw him up against surprise package Zhang Anda, the young Chinese player making century breaks in each of the last two frames to win 10-8. Walden sportingly applauded his opponent out of the arena, despite his anguish at missing out on the Crucible. He finished the campaign 20th in the world.
The 2008 Roewe Shanghai Masters will live forever in the memory of Walden as it gave him his first ranking title.
And the talented Flintshire potter did it the hard way, dispatching snooker legends and rising stars alike on his way to the trophy.
After beating Lee Spick and Ian McCulloch to earn his place on the flight east, Walden knocked out Zhang Anda, Stephen Hendry, Neil Robertson, Steve Davis and Mark Selby to set up a final clash with world No 1 Ronnie O’Sullivan.
The Rocket was on a run of 14 consecutive wins in ranking event matches and rated a strong odds-on favourite for the first prize, but Walden played brilliantly to register one of the shocks of the season with a 10-8 victory, sealing the result with a superb break of 105.
"I’m thrilled to bits to win my first tournament," said Walden. "I hope I can go on and achieve more now. I want to get into the top 16 and win more tournaments."
Though he failed to reach the same heights in the remainder of the season, he did qualify for the televised stages of the Betfred.com World Snooker Championship for the first time in his career. Walden could not get beyond the first round at Sheffield, going down 10-6 to Mark Selby.
Walden, who considers himself English but lives in north Wales just a few miles from World Snooker’s centre at Prestatyn, reached the quarter-finals of the 2005 China Open in Beijing, beating the likes of Matthew Stevens and Steve Davis before losing to Stephen Hendry. He has also scored two professional wins over John Higgins.
He is a keen Liverpool fan and often visits Anfield to watch the 2005 European champions. He enjoys travelling and frequently flies to Las Vegas with his friends. He has also become an enthusiastic long distance runner and took part in the New York Marathon in 2009.

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