Rod Lawler (born 12 July 1971) is an English retired professional snooker player. He is noted for his slow playing style which gave rise to his nickname, "Rod the Plod".[1]
Lawler turned professional in 1990. His first season proved to be quite successful as he reached the last 32 in the Dubai Classic, losing out 2–5 to former World Billiards ChampionRex Williams. He then followed this up with a run to the Quarter Finals of the Classic, beating John Virgo 5–3 to qualify, as well as Joe Johnson 5–3 in the second round, before losing 2–5 to Mike Hallett. His best run in a ranking tournament was in 1996, when he reached the final of the International Open, beating World Champion Stephen Hendry 5–3 in the second round, but his run ended in the final where he lost 9–3 to John Higgins.[2]
In 1995, Lawler reached the semi-final of the Malta Masters, beating future UK ChampionMatthew Stevens in the Quarter Final, however he lost in the semi-final to the home favourite Tony Drago. He followed up this result by reaching the last 16 of the Grand Prix, beating the aforementioned Tony Drago in the last 32, before being whitewashed 5–0 by Stephen Hendry.
Lawler has qualified for the final stages of the World Championship on two occasions, the first being in 1995, where he beat a young Marcus Campbell in qualifying, before losing to Peter Ebdon in the last 32 at the Crucible. He qualified again in 1996, beating former World Champion Dennis Taylor in the final qualifying round. At the Crucible he then beat 1991 World Champion John Parrott 10–6, before losing in the last 16 to Dave Harold by 13 frames to 6. This was, to date, his best World Championship performance.
Lawler narrowly missed out on a place in the last 32 in the 2009 China Open, winning three qualifying matches, the last of which was against Matthew Stevens, to reach the venue in Beijing, only to lose 3–5 to local wildcard Yu Delu.[4] In 2010 however, Lawler did reach the last 32 of the China Open, winning three qualifying matches against Matthew Selt, Dominic Dale, and Ricky Walden. Also defeating wildcard Supoj Saenla 5–3, before losing to then number 8 seed Mark Selby
The 2011–12 was a disastrous season for Lawler. He reached the third qualifying round in three ranking events. Apart from that he lost a lot of matches which then proved quite costly at the end of the season as he finished ranked 73, losing his place on the main tour. He then entered the 2012 Q School and reached the semi-finals of Event 3 by beating another former professional Joe Delaney to regain his tour place for the next two seasons.
Following his Gloucester success, he continued to perform well, reaching the final qualifying round of both the UK Championship and Haikou World Open tournaments, with his results enough to move him back inside the top 64 provisionally.
His victory over Fu at the UK PTC along with a semi-final run in the European Tour 2012/2013 – Event 6 meant that he qualified for the PTC Finals ranked 7th on the Order of Merit. At the venue in Galway he beat Cao Yupeng by a 4–2 scoreline, only to lose to Kurt Maflin in the last 16 by 4 frames to 3, having led throughout the match.
At the 2013 World Championship, Lawler beat Scottish Amateur Fraser Patrick 10–5, he then resisted an admirable fightback to beat Anthony McGill 10–9, after being 7–2 and 8–3 up. However, in the final qualifying round, he lost 7–10 to World number 21 Martin Gould, despite being 5–2 up at one point in the match, however, the progression to the final qualifying round netted him £8,200.
Lawler earned £49,050 during the 2012–13 snooker season. He also made 15 century breaks, more than in any previous season.[6]
Lawler qualified for the first ranking tournament of the season, the Wuxi Classic, beating Vinnie Calabrese 5–3. In the first round proper, he faced Shaun Murphy who won the match 5–1. Lawler failed to qualify for both the Shanghai Masters and the Australian Goldfields Open but then reached the semi-finals of the second Euro Tour (PTC) event, eventually losing 3–4 to Mark Allen in a deciding frame. A solid run of results followed, reaching a quarter-final in PTC4 where he eventually lost 3–4 to Robert Milkins, and also reaching the fourth round of the UK Championship where he pulled one back against Mark Allen by beating him 6–4 in the third round, eventually losing 3–6 to Judd Trump. Lawler failed to achieve another deep run in a tournament for the rest of the season, but was consistent in qualifying for the main stages of ranking tournaments, and therefore accumulated enough prize money to finish 39th on the rankings list at the end of the season.
2018/2019 season
In November 2018, after winning his first round match against Anthony Hamilton at the UK Championships, Lawler was criticised for his slow play by World Snooker Chairman Barry Hearn taking an average of 39.8s per shot.[7] Despite this, he reached the quarter final of the Shootout, where players have a limited time (15 seconds for the first five minutes; ten seconds thereafter) to play each shot.
2022/2023 season
Lawler regained his Main Tour Card in May 2022 by qualifying through the first Q School event at Sheffield. The final qualifying round saw him beat Brandon Sargeant 4–3 which earned him a two year card.
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