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1978 Champion of Champions

Snooker tournament

The 1978 Champion of Champions (officially the 1978 Daily Mirror Champion of Champions) was a professional nonranking snooker tournament held on 2 and 3 November 1978 at the Wembley Conference Centre in London, England.

01Summary

Four players contested the tournament which was held over two days. The event was promoted by Michael Barrett, a boxing promoter.

Ray Reardon easily won the first semifinal 6, 1 after taking a 5, 0 lead. In the evening match Doug Mountjoy led 3, 2 but Alex Higgins won the next four frames to win 6, 3. The 8th frame was won on a respotted black. In the final Reardon led Higgins 6, 4 after the afternoon session. In the evening Reardon extended his lead to 9, 5 before Higgins won the next four frames to level the match. In the 19th frame Reardon had a 77 clearance to win the frame and then won the 20th frame easily to win the match.

Brief highlights were shown on ITV's World of Sport on the following afternoon (Saturday 4 November, 3:10 pm).

02Prize fund

The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:

  • Winner: £2,000
  • Runner-up: £1,000
  • Semi-finals: £500
  • Total: £4,000

There was a £100 prize for every century break.

03Players

The following 4 players qualified for the tournament:

PlayerQualified as
 Ray Reardon (WAL)1978 World Snooker Championship winner
 Patsy Fagan (IRL)1977 UK Championship winner
 Alex Higgins (NIR)1978 Masters winner
 Doug Mountjoy (WAL)1978 Pot Black winner

04Main draw

  Semi-finals
Best of 11 frames
(2 November)
Final
Best of 21 frames
(3 November)
        
   
 
   Ray Reardon (WAL)6
   
   Patsy Fagan (IRL)1
   Ray Reardon (WAL)11
   
   Alex Higgins (NIR)9
   Alex Higgins (NIR)6
 
   Doug Mountjoy (WAL)3
 

05Final

Final: Best of 21 frames. Referee: John Smyth.
Wembley Conference Centre, London, England, 3 November 1978.
Ray Reardon
 Wales
11, 9 Alex Higgins
 Northern Ireland
Afternoon: 125, 8 (52), 90, 43 (90), 75, 46, 28, 108, 60, 43, 20, 114 (83), 13, 101 (76), 104, 19 (70), 1, 140 (61, 62), 84, 22
Evening: 78, 36, 101, 18 (67), 12, 100, 73, 48 (61), 41, 90, 51, 60, 23, 83 (51), 30, 72, 78, 46 (77), 94, 12
(frame 2) 90 Highest break 83 (frame 6)
0 Century breaks 0
6 50+ breaks 5

06Century breaks

None. The highest break: 94 , Alex Higgins in the semifinal.

Watch videos about 1978 Champion of ChampionsExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article 1978 Champion of Champions, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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