Kurt Maflin

Kurt Maflin

Kurt Maflin at the 2013 German Masters
Born	(1983-08-08) 8 August 1983 (age 33) Lewisham, London
Sport country	Norway (2004–present)  England (until 2004)
Professional	2000–
Highest ranking	31 (January–February 2015)
Current ranking	42 (as of 18 December 2016)
Career winnings	UK£283,253
Highest break	147 (2 times)
Century breaks	136
Best ranking finish	Semi-finals (2013 PTC Finals, 2015 China Open)
Tournament wins
Non-ranking	1

Kurt Graham Maflin (born 8 August 1983 in Lewisham, London) is an English-Norwegian professional snooker player. A strong break-builder, Maflin is among 21 players to have made multiple 147 breaks in professional competition.

Maflin began playing snooker at the age of four, achieving a high break of 25 by the time he was five. He increased his time spent at the table practising. As a rated top junior player, Maflin represented England in the 1999 Home International series in Prestatyn, North Wales, where England were victorious.

After appearing in the Finals of the English National Championships in the Under-13 and Under-15 categories, he went on to become the first person to retain the English Under-17 national title (once held by Paul Hunter) in 2000 after winning it for the first time in 1999.

When aged 14, Maflin was invited, on behalf of TV Times magazine, to team up with former World Champion Dennis Taylor to raise money for the leukaemia Research Fund at the 1998 Liverpool Victoria Charity Challenge event. After meeting the world's top players, Maflin and Taylor managed to win £4,300 for the charity, playing 'Pounds for Points'. Maflin also appeared twice on BBC1's popular snooker game show series Junior Big Break: Stars of the Future in 1997, and winning the contestant the grand prize of a holiday in 1998.

He began his professional career by playing Challenge Tour in 2000, at the time the second-level professional tour. In 2001, Maflin reached the final of the English Open Championship and was runner-up in the European Championship Final staged in Riga, Latvia. The same year he won his place on World Snooker's Main Tour becoming the second youngest professional snooker player in the world at the time. Despite reaching the last 48 of the Welsh Open before losing to Tony Drago, the rest of Maflin's results were not strong enough to remain on Main Tour, forcing him to return to Challenge Tour. He managed to win Event 4 and was back into Main Tour for the 2003/04 season, but again couldn't hold his place. He moved to Norway with his partner, female snooker player Anita Rizzuti, and nearly gave up snooker, but his interest was revived after an offer from Norwegian businessman Knut Pederson. "He said he would sponsor me if I made a century break in the final of one of the Norwegian league matches," Maflin explained. "I got a 137 in the first frame and never looked back since".