As the blue glided sweetly into the corner pocket, Ryan Day could finally celebrate. There had been nothing to separate Day from his opponent for large swathes of the British Open final, but from 7-6 down, the Welshman engaged another gear. Suddenly, the man they call ‘Dynamite’ was stomping around the table in explosive fashion, and Allen simply couldn’t match fire with fire.
Day’s 10-7 victory is the biggest moment of his career so far. Despite winning the Snooker Shoot-Out in 2021, it had felt as though his career had stagnated somewhat since winning two ranking events in the 2017-18 season. The British Open triumph seemed to come out of nowhere, but sometimes that is what a player needs to reignite their career.
When on top form, few can dominate a snooker table the way Day can. One of the most naturally aggressive players on the tour, Day has an explosive playing style that is impossible to deal with when all the parts are working correctly, and Allen was forced to endure a devastating patch of form towards the end of the final.
It has been a while since Day looked so confident around the table in a big match where he was the underdog in the snooker betting odds. He showed similar form when he won the Gibraltar Open in 2018 with a 4-0 win over Cao Yupeng in the final, and many felt that it would be the beginning of a golden period in Day’s career. Things haven’t quite worked out, with the Welshman ultimately losing his place in the top 16 and sliding down the rankings.
This victory, and the £100,000 prize that accompanies it, takes him back into the top 16 in the world rankings and opens several doors. He now has a strong chance of earning a place at the Masters in January, the prestigious invitational event reserved for the world’s top 16 players. He’ll also feature at the Champion of Champions in Bolton next month, a tournament that offers lucrative prize money and a place among the sport’s in-form elite. His seeding in tournaments will improve as well, which in theory should grant him safer passage through to the business end of events.
It’s important that Day uses this victory as a springboard. It would be too easy to treat it as something of a bonus, but the 42-year-old will know that he has the talent to be a consistent force at the top level of the sport.
We’ve seen plenty of players in their 40s enjoy success in recent years, so age shouldn’t be a factor for Day, and there are plenty of tournaments coming up in which he can prove that this victory wasn’t a flash in the pan.
Defeating a player of Allen’s calibre in the final, after the Northern Irishman had played such sumptuous snooker throughout the tournament, will give Day an immense amount of confidence. With four ranking titles to his name now, and finally an elite-level trophy to his name, it seems as though the sky is the limit for the Welshman. We could well look back at this British Open as the spark that ignited Dynamite Day.