| Tournament Name: | 2007 SAGA Insurance Masters |
| Venue: | Wembley Arena |
| Location: | London |
| Country: | England |
| Organisation: | WPBSA |
| Format: | Non-ranking event |
| Winners Share: | £130,000 |
| Highest Break: | (147) |
| Score: | 10–3 |
| Previous: | 2006 |
| Next: | 2008 |
The 2007 Masters (officially the 2007 SAGA Insurance Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place from 14 to 21 January 2007 at the Wembley Arena in London, England. It was the 33rd edition of the tournament. In a slight change for 2007, there were 19 competitors, as opposed to 18 up until 2006. The top 16 seeds for ranking events were automatically invited, while the other players entered a qualifying tournament for the right to one of three wild-card places. The two remaining places were granted by the game's governing body at their discretion to Jimmy White and Ding Junhui. Stuart Bingham won the qualifying tournament.
Ronnie O'Sullivan won his third Masters title by defeating Ding Junhui 10–3 in the final. With a noticeably partisan crowd, a visibly upset Ding went to shake O'Sullivan's hand after the latter won the 12th frame to go 9–3 in front, apparently believing that the match was over. The two walked arm-in-arm out of the arena. After O'Sullivan clinched the match in the following frame, it later transpired that Ding had indeed believed the match was best-of-17 frames.
Defending champion John Higgins was the number 1 seed with World Champion Graeme Dott seeded 2. Places were allocated to the top 16 players in the world rankings. Players seeded 14, 15 and 16 played in the wild-card round against the winner of the qualifying event, Stuart Bingham (ranked 24), and two wild-card selections, Ding Junhui (ranked 27) and Jimmy White (ranked 34). This was the only time that there were three matches in the wild-card round. Barry Hawkins was making his debut in the Masters.
The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:[1]
In the preliminary "wild-card round", the three wild-card players were drawn against the players seeded 14th, 15th and 16th:[2] [3] [4] During the course of his match against Anthony Hamilton, Ding Junhui became the 28th and youngest ever player to score a maximum 147 break on live television. Aged, he broke the previous record set by Ronnie O'Sullivan in 1997 who was then old. This was also just the second maximum in the history of the Masters.[5]
| Match | Date | Score | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WC1 | Sunday 14 January | (14) | 6–1 | ||
| WC2 | Sunday 14 January | (15) | 6–5 | ||
| WC3 | Sunday 14 January | (16) | 3–6 |
| Final: Best of 19 frames. Referee: Jan Verhaas. Wembley Arena, London, England, 21 January 2007. | |||
| Ronnie O'Sullivan (5) | 10–3 | Ding Junhui | |
| Afternoon: 1–77 (77),,,,,,, Evening: 96–0 (96),,,, | |||
| 143 | Highest break | 109 | |
| 4 | Century breaks | 1 | |
| 10 | 50+ breaks | 3 | |
The 2006 Masters Qualifying Event were held between 4 and 9 November 2006 at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield, England. The winner of this series of matches, who qualified for the tournament, was Stuart Bingham.[6]
Total: 26[3]