Robert Milkins beat former world champion Shaun Murphy 9-7 to win the Welsh Open and earn £230,000 payday in Llandudno.
46 year old Gloucester The BetVictor Series, which has appeared in eight events since last July, has been awarded a £80,000 first prize and a bonus of £150,000 as it topped the rankings.
“I can’t even speak, it’s really unreal,” said Milkins at Eurosport, who won his first qualifying title in 27 years as a pro at the Gibraltar Open 11 months ago.
“During the day, I struggled a bit like Shaun. Frankly, I had a lot of reasons to fight, so that’s a lot of money for me.
“I tried not to think about it and to be honest I played well tonight (in the session), but it was really tough to start and if Shaun was in 20 percent of his game I’m sure he could have taken the lead going into tonight.
“Obviously Gibraltar was great, but beating someone like Shaun in the top 17 in the final is the icing on the cake, even if he didn’t play well.”
With a 147-point lead in a fourth-round defeat to Daniel Wells earlier this week, Murphy took a 3-1 lead before Milkins countered to take the next three frames in a row.
A 68 break helped Murphy level the scores at the end of the first session, and the players shared the first two frames of the evening before Milkins regained the 11th frame by black.
The 60 and 64 break put Milkins on the winning streak, and although Murphy kept the game alive with the competition’s only century, Milkins secured the championship with 64 more points.
“Frankly, I’m disappointed,” Murphy said. “I couldn’t have tried more, I left it all there.
“I could have played a little better but today I really didn’t have that and all the credit goes to Rob, he was by far the better player.”