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Sublime Sykes Extends Junior Tour Winning Streak
Oliver Sykes made it three event wins from three following a 3-1 victory against Paul Deaville in the final of the latest leg of this season’s English Junior Snooker Tour.
A plethora of the nation’s top junior talents travelled to the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds for Event Three of the five-event circuit. Players were looking to stop 17-year-old Sykes’ early season dominance having triumphed at Event One in Derby and Event Two in Waterlooville in recent months, however, the south coast cueist continued his streak and completed a memorable hat-trick.
Off the back of defeating the experienced Alfie Burden 6-1 in the opening round of the UK Championship qualifiers the previous week, Sykes began his campaign on the second day of the event as one of the eight seed players. He had to overcome a 2-1 opening match defeat to James Pears, making breaks of 54, 56 and 84 in a 2-0 win against Dilraj Ryatt and then registering runs of 56 and 65 in a 2-0 success over Jake Crofts.
Having qualified for the quarter-finals after finishing top of his group on frame average, Sykes eliminated current English under-14 champion Shaun Liu 3-1. Sykes hit a 53 while 13-year-old Liu crafted a 61 in the frame he won.
In possibly the match of the weekend – and a repeat of the Event Two final – Sykes ousted former English under-18 championship finalist Aidan Murphy 3-2 in the semi-finals. A contest in which both players led; Sykes constructed breaks of 54 and 121 (day two’s highest break) before a contribution of 64 in the deciding frame. Murphy made a 56 in frame one.
English Amateur Championship title holder Deaville dropped just one frame en route to the title match.
The 19-year-old came top of his group with three wins from three and then dispatched Samuel Lee Stevens 3-0 and Event One runner-up Crofts 3-0 in the last eight and four, respectively.
However, Sykes was not to be denied a hat-trick as he defeated his opponent in the final after winning frames one, three and four.
Elsewhere during the weekend in Leeds, Liu, Pears, Reece Matin, Adam Abbas, Evan Plummer, Ryatt, Alec Chalmers and Kian Dennett were all group winners from Saturday’s action as they qualified for the Sunday. Plummer went the furthest out of all the day one qualifiers, reaching the quarter-finals where he was pipped by former World Snooker Federation Junior Championship finalist Crofts.
Former English under-14 snooker champion Vladislav Gradinari compiled the overall highest break of the weekend with a 135.
Event Four of this season’s English Junior Snooker Tour is set for the Woodside Snooker Centre in Dereham on the weekend of December 9th & 10th. Entries for this event close on Friday 1st December at 12:00. Enter here.
