03 October 2017 17:45:00 Posted By Felix

Shelley McDermott won the inaugural week of the Shoot Pool Tournaments Big League competition from a field of 10 players.

The tournament will run for ten weeks with each week for a maximum of 16 players split into 2 groups, with a semi-final and final stage following the group matches for the Top 2 in each group.

Following on from the individual weeks a Finals Week will be played on 16th December featuring the Top 8 qualifiers from those ten weeks.

Week 1 saw the ten players split into two groups with each player facing the others in their group twice.

Shelley and Chris Eley were dominating Group A, with both winning one of their meetings 2-1, whilst maintaining similar scorelines against their other rivals in the group.

The difference that split the two came down to the final match as Chris suffered a 2-1 loss to John Thorne that left Shelley topping the group and Chris finishing in second to take the two knockout stage places from Group A.

The second group was a closer affair, with four of the five players spending time on top of the table as they failed to separate themselves from one another until Wayne Thorne produced a five match winning streak, bookended by two 3-0 wins over Peter Ward, that sealed top spot in the group for Wayne.

Stuart Voller took second spot in the group after a 3-0 defeat of Max Burgess in their final match in the group eliminated Max from the running and secured one of the Top 2 places for Stuart, with the second place going to winner of the final group match between Wayne and Peter Ward (see result above).

That left the semi-final lineup as Shelley versus Stuart and Chris going against Wayne, and the Group A pair went comfortably through the final as both won 3-1.

With the two group stage matches between Shelley and Chris both finishing 2-1, the final was expected to be close, and it was as both had spells on top, but it was Shelley who took the match 5-3 to claim the honour of the first Big League Week Champion.

The tournament continues next week with the competition open to 16 players on a first come first served basis, with all participating players each week earning points that will go towards the Overall Standings and qualification for Finals Week.