At 47 years old, with the crowd in Essex roaring his name, Ali Carter won the last frame without reply and raised his cue to claim the English Open in front of his home fans in Brentwood. It was a 9-6 victory over Wales' Mark Williams, and it gave Carter his seventh ranking title — but the number that tells the real story is not a scoreline at all. It is a 10-year gap between cancer scares and this trophy.

Neither player had ever won the English Open before, and early on it looked like Williams would take that honour. The Welshman surged ahead to lead 5-3 at the interval. But Carter stormed back after the break, winning the first two frames to level the match, and from there he never trailed. In a dominant evening session, he lost just one frame and sealed the win with £100,000 on the line.

"I thought, 'I am going for this'," Carter told TNT Sports. "I didn't care where the balls were today; I wasn't going to lose this by turning down balls. I kept potting the big shots and knocking all the difficult balls in. I am delighted. This is very, very special."

That attitude has carried him through a life most players never have to face. Carter lives with Crohn's disease, an illness that inflames the digestive tract, and has twice fought cancer — including a cancerous tumour on his lung, for which he was given the all-clear in 2014. "I have been to hell and back," he said. "I know I am not everyone's cup of tea, but what you see is what you get."

The win is his first ranking title since 2024 and lifts him from 25th to back inside the world's top 16 — a jump of nine places that secures his place among snooker's elite. For an Essex-born player competing in front of a hometown audience, the moment carried extra weight. "It is a great achievement to pick up another trophy at 47, especially in front of my home fans," he said.

Carter's story is a reminder that triumph is rarely just about the final ball. It is about the long road to get there — the hospital rooms, the recoveries, the years spent grinding back up the rankings. At an age when many players are winding down, he is adding trophies. And in front of his own people, in his own county, he proved that resilience and stubbornness can turn a comeback into a championship.