Nine-year-old makes 45 break

BRONZE Tour starlet Oliver Sykes has booked an automatic spot on next season’s Silver Tour.

Aged just nine and a half, the classy left-hander compiled a personal best 45 break against Pete Jordan in the third and deciding frame of the Saturday afternoon Open Series plate final at 7pm yesterday at Chandler’s Ford Snooker Club.

It came at the end of another ten hours of competition for the youngster. He started at 9am in the Eastleigh & District Under-13, followed that with the Under-19 League at 11am and went straight into the Open Series at 1pm.

Sykes, who first picked up a cue 18 months ago, won the 2015 Ken Jones May Half-Term Cup at Chandler’s Ford Snooker Club and reached the final of the Cuestars South of England Under-21 Bronze Tour championship play-off in Swindon – where he received his trophy from, and played an exhibition frame against professional Joe Perry.

Meanwhile, Gold Tour player Mickey Joyce, 12, made a personal best 77 in his 3-2 first-round defeat by Charlie Pringle in the Open Series.

And the third running of the Rotary Summer Cup kicks off at Chandler’s Ford Snooker Club at 11am on Thursday, July 23. It runs for 28 weekdays during the school holiday.

Four hours of Cuestars Coaching Programme exercises, coaching, skills training (including rules and etiquette), snooker, billiards and cricket with World Snooker coach Tim Dunkley. Small daily prize, five weekly trophies plus Rotary Summer Cup for overall winner.

Cost is £6 a day. We start at 11am, have a short lunch break at 12.45pm and finish at 3pm. No pre-booking required. No requirement to attend every day. All standards catered for, including complete beginners. No dress code. Non-members welcome.

Previous champions: 2013 Steven Hughes, 2014 Bowen Zhu.

Report by Tim Dunkley.