England’s Stuart Bingham became the oldest Masters winner by defeating Ali Carter 10-8 in a thrilling and fluctuating final at Alexandra Palace.
Bingham, 43, claimed his second Triple Crown event title to go alongside his 2015 World Championship win.
Carter turned around a 5-3 deficit to lead 7-5, but Bingham showed tremendous bottle to fight back.
Bingham becomes the 24th different name on the Paul Hunter trophy, collecting a record £250,000 winners’ prize money.
Welshman Ray Reardon was 43 years and three months when he claimed the Masters in 1976, while Bingham is five months older.
Bingham takes his chance
Much like opponent Carter, Bingham’s record in this tournament was dreadful with eight defeats at the first hurdle in nine appearances.
He was a 50-1 long shot when he lifted the sport’s biggest prize at the Crucible Theatre and at the start of the tournament he would have been an outside bet to take the invitational event in London.
The 43-year-old’s form has been poor this season, reaching just one quarter-final at a ranking event, and his most recent silverware came at the Gibraltar Open last March.
Bingham missed this lucrative tournament two years ago as he served a six-month ban for betting breaches but has redeemed himself and the late bloomer – who won his first title in 2011 after first turning professional 16 years previously – now just needs to win the UK Championship to complete the Triple Crown series.
Having seen defending champion Judd Trump, UK winner Ding Junhui and former world champions Mark Selby and Neil Robertson all exit in the first round, he seized the opportunity to add a major to go alongside his six ranking titles.
Despite seeing Carter hit back at him in the evening, Bingham showed outstanding composure to keep himself together, helped by a run of four straight frames late on.
More soon.
