Recent Years
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. 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 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.
Lawler had a great start to the 2012/13 season as he won all four matches to qualify for the Wuxi Classic. At the venue he defeated Li Hang and Stephen Maguire to reach the last 16 where he was narrowly beaten 4–5 by Graeme Dott. In September he won his first professional title at the UK PTC 3 event defeating Marco Fu 4–2 in the final in Gloucester, Beating the likes of Stuart Bingham, Stephen Lee and Dominic Dale en route to the final.
Following his Gloucester success, Rod 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 a 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.
As of April 2013, Lawler has earned £49,241 during the 2012/2013 Snooker seasons. He has also made 72 Century Breaks in his career.
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