David Causier beat Christian Kirk 1,094-223 at the Landywood Snooker Club to successfully defend the World Billiards UK Championship.
The reigning world champion was in dominant form as he romped to the title and fired in 20 breaks over 100 en route – including a top contribution of 749 in his semi-final match.
Causier’s successful defence of the UK Championship means his name will be etched on the trophy for the fifth time, having first won the event in 2000.
Causier comfortably topped his group by defeating Chris Achilles, Ron Bickerdike, Geoffrey Lingard and Neville Ward by an aggregate scoreline of 4,156-381.
His first two knockout stages provided somewhat closer contests for the defending champion but he still found his way into the last four courtesy of successes over Darren Clark, who reached the semi-finals of the World Championship at Landywood last October, and Roxton Chapman, a former winner of this event who is only a few months into his welcome return to competitive play.
The semi-final saw Causier meet Robert Hall in a repeat of the 2024 World Billiards Championship final and it was a match-up that saw the 53-year-old perform to his peak.
A stunning display saw breaks of 308, 749, 248 and an unfinished contribution of 102 earn Causier a 1,419-15 victory to set up a title match meeting with Kirk.
Kirk had overcome Robert Marshall in the last four to reach the final, but he suffered a similar fate to each of Causier’s previous opponents in the event as another dominant scoring display saw the world number one complete his title defence in style.
World number 4 Peter Sheehan was the second player to cross the 500 break mark during the three-day event, with a matchplay personal best of 507 against Dale Schofield.
Ryan Mears was the highest ranked player in the Challenge Cup, and he duly won the event with a victory over Ron Bickerdike in the final.
The next event of the World Billiards season is the Irish Open which takes place at the SBI Academy in Carlow on 17-19 April.