Daniel Boyes Wins Maiden English Junior Tour Title

Daniel Boyes defeated Vladislav Gradinari 3-2 in the final of the second English Junior Tour event of the season at Frames Sports Bar in Coulsdon.

• Results

The reigning English Under-18 champion defeated Oliver Sykes, who had won five of the previous six English Junior Tour events, in the quarter-finals before overcoming Ethan Llewellyn and Gradinari to win his maiden title on the tour.

The two-day event saw 52 cueists competing in total, with 44 of those battling it out on the Saturday to join the eight seeded players on the final day.

Sixteen-year-old Dylan Smith was one of the in form players of the opening day as he compiled the day’s high break of 80 and, along with Edward Jones, Adam Abbas, William Hurley and Westley Cooper, qualified for the final stages without dropping a frame in the initial group phase.

Sunday saw the 20 remaining players divided into groups of five and, despite a 2-0 loss to Gradinari, Boyes advanced to the knockout stages with four wins – including a deciding frame victory over English Under-14 champion Nicholas Ayers.

In the quarter-finals he faced Sykes, who was a strong favourite heading into the weekend having topped last season’s English Junior Tour ranking list and won the opening event of the new season last month.

Despite falling 1-0 behind in the best-of-five frame contest, Boyes was then able to take three consecutive frames to complete a notable victory.

Boyes took his form into the semi-finals, where a break of 35 in the fourth frame helped him to a 3-1 win over Llewellyn to set up a title match meeting with Gradinari.

The reigning European and English Under-16 champion Gradinari had defeated Boyes in the group stage earlier in the day, but the 16-year-old was able to turn around a 2-1 deficit to take the match in a deciding frame and win the first English Junior Tour event of his career.