By Elliott West
Introduction
Wayne Cooper was born in 1978, a former English Amateur Championship semi-finalist and first turned professional, joining the main tour in 2001, remaining on it for a year until 2002. He then regained his place for a further season during the years 2008/2009 by finishing top of the EASB Pro Ticket Tour rankings. Cooper won three matches in that season: in the Northern Ireland Trophy, beating Lewis Roberts 5-1, the Welsh Open where he defeated Simon Bedford 5-3 and the World Snooker Championship where he won a deciding frame in the qualifiers against Scott Mackenzie 10-9 before losing a tense match to Joe Delaney 8-10. A player whose highest break of 117 came in the 2002 Thailand Masters, who made five-century breaks, had a highest ranking of 90 and made the last 96 of five tournaments.
Life after being a Professional
Since leaving the professional tour, Wayne has made steady progress on the World Seniors tour as an amateur. Cooper played in the 2020 World Seniors Championship as a replacement to Tony Drago, who couldn’t travel from Malta due to Covid restrictions. Wayne did well in this tournament, beating Gary Filtness 4-2 before losing to Michael Judge 1-4.
Cooper failed to qualify for the main 2021 World Seniors Championship after finishing second in his qualifying group to Peter Lines. A group that had Mukesh Parmar and Kevin Kelly also in it. The defeat came in the Bradfordian’s first game, where he lost 3-2 on frame scores. After going 2-0 up, 60-58 and 60-54, Cooper let the lead slip as Lines swept up the table with three consecutive frames, 50-64; 34-63 and 13-64.
Cooper bounced back by defeating the experienced Kelly in a 3-0 whitewash and also Parmar by the same scoreline. Unfortunately for Bradford’s snooker veteran, the defeat vs Lines prevented him from progressing to the semi-finals.
Wayne, a former ten times Bradford champion, openly admitted that he felt a lack of match practice, the lightning speed of the Star tables and strange silence in the venue due to not being able to have an audience due to pandemic restrictions, definitely played a part in his performance. His match against Peter Lines was lost on a kick on the black with Cooper later commenting :
“You would pot a hundred times out of a hundred, but for some reason it got a massive kick on it and it changed the game to be honest”.
Wayne Cooper
Thankfully some great news has just happened for Wayne with Cooper claiming his place at the forthcoming UK Seniors Championship in Hull. Wayne beat Wales’ Darren Morgan in the Seniors Q School to book his place in the tournament while Darren produced some excellent form to win the Super Seniors, Event 1, progressing to the main event after a gruelling twelve hours of play.
