Ryan’s Day
GUEST-of-honour Ryan Day hot-footed it across from Gloucester to fulfill his pledge to play exhibition frames against Cuestars champions and present the trophies.
That morning, the world number 28 has been competing in the Pink Ribbon Tournament at the South West Snooker Academy.
He lost 4-0 to Michael Holt in the last-16 and reached Jesters Snooker Hall, Swindon, soon after dinner.
Welsh professional Day explained: “I went for everything and got beaten in about 20 minutes and rushed to get here on time.”
Day played 17 exhibition frames and was only beaten by Daniel Winfield (Player’s, Westbury). The 16-year-old triumphed 53-50.
Gold Tour rankings champion Daniel Woods (Chandler’s Ford SC) compiled a 43 break against the world number 28 – but lost on the pink. Alex Dunkley (Cue T’s, Marchwood) also took Day to the last two balls.
Day, 31, notched up three centuries: 109 against Ben Tanner (The Academy, Eastleigh), 122 against James Inglis (Rileys, Worcester) and 100 against Daniel Compton (Copnor SC, Portsmouth).
“I played OK, actually,” he said. “Considering I haven’t played a lot of snooker after the World Championship.
“It’s nice to see a full club with lots of enthusiastic players all competing in different events. There’s certainly some good players in amongst the ones I played.
“It’s encouraging, also, to see the youngsters all dressed up very smartly and keen as mustard to play and get better.”
Day said he arrived at Jesters to find the club was “absolutely choc-a-block”.
After hearing about all the different competitions taking place, he said: “It sounds as though it’s pretty much a logistical nightmare for whoever is running it.”
And he added: “It was obvious (Cuestars) has been quite successful for a number of years.”
Weekend Section champions who received awards from Day were: Kyle Hollow (The Academy, Basingstoke), Ben Tanner (The Academy, Eastleigh), Daniel Compton (Copnor SC, Portsmouth), Jodie Symes (Jesters, Swindon) and Danny Tallentire (Player’s, Westbury).
Thanks…
CUESTARS would like to thank:
Tournament director Paul Rose (Jesters, Swindon).
Referees and organisers Roy Danyluk (Liberal Club, High Wycombe), Colin Henley (The Academy, Eastleigh) and Alan Thomas (Jesters, Swindon).
Ryan Day for providing moments of magic that the youngsters will be able to tell their grandchildren about.
Jesters Snooker Hall for handing over their entire club to Cuestars for the day and serving up mountains of sausage, egg, beans and chips and an endless stream of coffee and tea.
Kevin Smithers (top snooker photographer from thesnookerforum.com) for the presentation pictures.
And John Hunter (Cuestars founder and director) who managed to squeeze 17 exhibition frames with Ryan Day and eight separate competitions into seven-and-a-half hours. OK, the Seniors over-ran. But we’ll forgive him that. Take the summer off, John.
Picture by Kevin Smithers (thesnookerforum.com): Ryan Day in action in Swindon