Education
Duffy finished his first year as a professional ranked world number 62, inside the top 64 who guarantee their places for the 2012/2013 season.
Duffy finished his first year as a professional ranked world number 62, inside the top 64 who guarantee their places for the 2012/2013 season.
Duffy qualified for the 2011/2012 professional Main Tour as one of four semi-finalists from the third and final Q School event. Debut season He also reached the last 16 of Event 2 of the minor-ranking Players Tour Championship series, which included a 4–0 victory over world number one Mark Selby. He was the second highest ranked of all the new players on the tour, after China"s Yu Delu who was number 58.
2012/2013 season He finished a lowly 108th on the PTC, but did end the season ranked world number 60, his highest ranking to date.
2013/2014 season In his opening match, Duffy defeated Tony Drago 5–2 to qualify for the 2013 Wuxi Classic in China, but lost 5–3 to Lu Ning in the wildcard round. He led twice before the interval but went on to lose 6–3.
He came within two victories of doing so in the second event, but lost 4–3 to Lee Walker. 2014/2015 season Duffy entered all the European Tour events during the season, and thanks to his high Q School ranking he was able to enter a number of ranking tournaments as well.
At the Paul Hunter Classic, Duffy overcame Ryan Day and Gerard Greene both 4–3, before losing 4–0 to Fergal O"Brien in the last 32.
He qualified for the Indian Open by beating Jack Lisowski 4–2 and then edged out Gary Wilson 4–3 to play Judd Trump in the second round. Duffy came from 3–1 down to level at 3–3, but would lose the deciding frame to the world number six in a three-hour match. Duffy played Jamie Jones in an attempt to become the first player from Sheffield to play at the Crucible, but was narrowly beaten 10–8.
Duffy felt he had run out of steam during the match against an opponent who had been playing in tournaments all year, while Duffy had his playing opportunities limited due to his amateur status.
In the first event of Q School, Duffy reached the final round and made breaks of 107, 93 and 70 against Eden Sharav but lost 4–3.
As a new player on the tour Duffy would need to win four qualifying matches to reach the main stage of the ranking event tournaments. He came closest to doing this in the sixth event of the year, the Welsh Open, where he received a bye through round one and then beat James Wattana and Jack Lisowski, before being whitewashed 0–4 by former world champion Peter Ebdon in the final qualifying round. Duffy had a poor 2012/2013 season as he lost his first six games and only won a total of four matches in ranking event qualifiers and two matches in Players Tour Championship tournaments. At the United Kingdom Championship Duffy beat Barry Pinches in a deciding frame to face reigning world champion Ronnie O"Sullivan in the second round. His results during the year meant that he dropped 31 places to world number 91 in the rankings to drop off the tour, with Duffy entering Q School in an attempt to win his place back. However, the display seemed to give him confidence heading into the World Championship as he defeated Martin Gould 10–6 and won seven of the last eight frames to beat Sam Baird 10–7.