Daniel Boyes is English Under-18 Champion

Daniel Boyes defeated O’Shay Scott 5-3 at Barratts in Northampton to win the 2024 English Under-18 Championship.

• Results

The title marks a milestone in the career of 16-year-old Boyes, who wins an English national championship for the first time in his career and joins a prestigious roll of honour that includes former World champion Judd Trump and multiple ranking event winner Gary Wilson.

A strong field of 27 players headed to Northamptonshire, which included recent European Under-16 champion Vladislav Gradinari, last year’s English Under-14 champion Shaun Liu and William Thomson – the runner-up in this year’s Under-14 Championship.

Liu made a stunning start to the weekend by firing in two century breaks in a 3-0 victory over Zain Jeraj, but would ultimately fall short of getting through a group that featured a Gradinari and recent EPSB Open Series play-off qualifier John Donovan.

The aforementioned Gradinari was one of six cueists to qualify from the group stages with a clean sweep of victories along with eventual finalists Boyes and Scott.

Boyes continued his fine form in the quarter-finals by coming from 2-1 down to defeat James Pears 4-2 before overcoming Ethan Llewellyn, who made the weekend’s high break with a 103 in the group stage, to book his place in the final against Scott.

The 15-year-old cueist had begun his Sunday by defeating Dylan Smith 4-2 to set up a semi-final meeting with Edward Jones.

The best-of-seven frame contest was a dramatic affair. Having lost the opener, Scott then won three in a row to move into a 3-1 lead before Jones rallied with back-to-back frames to force a decider. There was relief the 15-year-old, however, as he got over the line by a scoreline of 60-28 to reach the title match.

Scott made a strong start to the final with a break 42 to take the opener but Boyes hit back with three consecutive frames to move two away from victory.

The only half century of the final, a 52, saw Scott reduce his deficit to one before the next two frames were shared to make it 4-3.

In the eighth frame of a possible nine, Boyes held his nerve to get over the line and secure the English Under-18 Championship title.

The EPSB would like to thank all the players, officials, staff at Barratts Northampton for all their support.