Six-year-old makes 32 break

SOME of you will have seen six-year-old William Thomson on his Cuestars Under-21 Bronze Tour debut last Sunday. Yes, he is quite a remarkable young lad.

But some of you may not be aware of what William achieved three days earlier and it certainly deserves a wider audience.

If I had read on the internet about a six-year-old making a 32 break, I would have taken it with an extremely large pinch of salt.

No, it was not in a practice routine. Yes, it was on a full-sized table. No, it was not in a friendly match.

I’ve grown accustomed to seeing some astonishing feats in my 18 years associated with the junior game at Chandlers Ford Snooker Club.

But watching William complete this astonishing break against Kean Zhu on Table 8 at 2.58pm on Day 6 of the Christmas Cup left me shaking my head in disbelief.

I watched it from 15 onwards. His dad, David, was sat on a chair by the fire escape next to Table 9. His mum, Zoé, was in the bar and the first to be told. Also in the bar was club-owner Ray Cooper, who had challenged William to increase his high break of 20 to 25 by the end of 2018 (so that goes down as a failure!).

Remarkably, William – who won’t be seven until June – took yellow and green with the first two reds. He followed that with three blacks and missed the yellow off the sixth red.

Earlier in the seven-day competition, he became the youngest player to have ever passed Level 4 of the Cuestars Academy.

Eight-year-old Caden Read won the Christmas Cup after pipping Kostas Ormerod by just one point. The final score after 28 hours of competition was 124-123. Alex Morgan (Phil Morgan’s son) finished third.

The next school holiday competition is the February Half-Term Cup.

Picture by Tim Dunkley

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Tim Dunkley (World Snooker coach)