Scottish Open 2014
19-20 July 2014, Meadows
The entry for the Scottish Open was back up to strength this year after the rather weak turnout of eight players in 2013. This time it had a full complement of 14 players, including three in the world's top 100, until Mark Ormerod had to withdraw with back trouble, leaving what was still quite a strong field of 13 including six minus players - Scottish residents James Hopgood, Campbell Morrison and John Surgenor and visitors David Maugham, Dave Nick and Sam Murray. All the applicants were nevertheless accommodated, and the tail of the distribution stretched from Brian Murdoch (0) through Bryan Sykes, Jane Morrison, Martin Stephenson, Alan Wilson and Fergus McInnes to Bob Darling (4.5).
As usual the format was a seeded knockout with single games in the first round and best-of-three matches in subsequent rounds. Three of the eight seeds - David Maugham, John Surgenor and Campbell Morrison - had byes into the second round, and all the others came through except that Jane Morrison lost to Fergus McInnes (18-22) in the only first-round game to go to time. Thereafter there were no upsets, and at the end of the first day the finalists were identified as David Maugham and James Hopgood. This left time on the second day for a best-of-five final, which was played to super-advanced rules by agreement of the players.
In the first game of the final, James went to 4-back, conceding a contact, from which David was able to make a leave, keep the innings, and subsequently peel and peg out James's ball and win +13tpo. In the second game the roles were reversed, but it was David who won the three-ball endgame. Game 3 was more one-sided, with James getting only one hoop. Final score: Maugham +13tpo +7otp +25tp.