Rory McLeod
| Name | Date of Birth | Country |
|---|---|---|
| Rory McLeod | 26-03-1971 | England |
Name : Rory McLeod
Highest Ranking : 32 (August – February 2012)
Current Ranking : 57 (After 2017 Players Championship)
Highest Break : 147 (2010 Prague Classic)
Century Breaks : 76
Rory McLeod (born 26 March 1971) is a British professional snooker player ten years on the Challenge Tour he reached the Main Tour professional ranks for the 2001/2002 season.
McLeod has reached the last 16 of five ranking tournaments. The first of these was the 2005 Grand Prix although this victory against a noticeably ill Paul Hunter was bittersweet. His best results of 2004/2005 were 2 last-48 runs, the Welsh Open run including a victory over Shaun Murphy. He narrowly missed out on a place in the last 16 of the 2007 Grand Prix, losing on frame difference in his group to Barry Hawkins.
He qualified for the 2008 UK Championship by beating Jimmy White and Dave Harold where he played Ronnie O'Sullivan. He slipped 6–0 down before launching an impressive comeback by winning five consecutive frames (including three successive centuries), but ultimately lost 9–6. Later in the season he defeated Ian McCulloch to qualify for the World Championship for the first time in 2009, becoming the first black player to have done so. He faced Mark King in the first round but despite putting in a resilient performance lost 10–6. However, his performances throughout the season saw him rise to his highest ranking yet of 39.
In 2009 he won the Masters Qualifying Event, beating Andrew Higginson 6–1 in the final, to earn a place at the final stages of the2010 Masters where he lost 6–2 to Mark Williams. He followed this up by qualifying for the UK Championship, being knocked out in the first round by Neil Robertson.
McLeod qualified for the World Snooker Championship for the second time in 2011, and was drawn against seeded player Ricky Walden in the first round. In a minor upset, McLeod won the match 10–6 to set up a second-round match with world No. 1 John Higgins. After the match, Walden criticised McLeod's slow style of play, though McLeod was playing only marginally slower than Walden. McLeod responded to the criticism by arguing that Walden was more responsible for the pace of the match. McLeod was ultimately defeated by the eventual champion John Higgins 13–7 in the second round.
McLeod began 2015/2016 by playing in the Australian Goldfields Open, where he beat Nigel Bond 5–2 before losing 5–4 to Jack Lisowski in the last 64. He progressed to the last 16 at the next event, the Riga Open, overcoming German amateur Roman Dietzel 4–1, Irishman Fergal O'Brien 4–0 and Hammad Miah 4–2, but lost at this stage 4–2 to eventual finalist Tom Ford. He reached the last 48 at the Shanghai Masters, losing to Alan McManus, and was eliminated in the first round of the International Championship, 6–1 by Daniel Wells.
However, at the Ruhr Open, McLeod defeated Craig Steadman, Jamie Jones, Mark King, Ben Woollaston, Mark Davis and the resurgent Mike Dunn to reach the final of an event carrying ranking points for the first time in his career, 24 years after making his professional debut. There, he faced China's Tian Pengfei, whom he defeated 4–2 to win his second professional title. The €25,000 winner's prize is the highest amount he has earned from a single tournament in his career. It also gained him entry to theChampion of Champions for the first time, but he was thrashed 4–0 by Neil Robertson in the opening round. After McLeod lost 6–5 to Jamie Cope in the UK Championship first round he said that he had not felt like the same person since his tournament win. Another first round deciding frame defeat came in the German Masters to Kyren Wilson and McLeod also lost in the second round of the 4–1 to Judd Trump. His debut appearance at the PTC Finals ended at the first hurdle as Dunn beat him 4–1. McLeod did reach the third round of the China Open by knocking out Mitchell Mann 5–0 and Dunn 5–2, but lost 5–1 to Alfie Burden.