Jones makes his experience count to win Whitley Bay Pro-Am event
THE field of 16 entrants which contested last Saturday’s Whitley Bay one-day handicapped Pro-Am event was made up of mainly juniors – middle of the road club players – plus two minus players, club member Adam Parker (minus 10) and Gatehead’s Brandon Hall (minus 20).
With a minus player in each half of the draw, Hall had to pull out all the stops to beat North Shields’ bright prospect TG Rendles 3-1 (off 65), before going on to beat Gateshead’s Keiron McNelce (off 60) by the same 3-1 scoreline. Looking for a place in the final, Hall crashed out in his next match after losing 3-2 in the decider to Gateshead’s Malcolm Jones (off 30), who had already recorded 3-1 wins over both Blyth’s Ash Wilson (off 25) and local player Graham Fowell.
In the top half of the draw Parker’s first match found him on the receiving end of a 3-2 deciding-frame defeat by first-time Whitley cueist Duncan Williams (off 40), who went on to reach the final with further wins over fellow seasider Tony Robson 3-0 (level) and North Shields’ Craig Sexton 3-1 (gave 20).
In an engrossing hard-fought final that had very few decent breaks, it was Williams’ 20 points a frame start that played a major part in keeping him in the game. However, with the scores all square at 2-2 it was the more experienced Jones with runs of 31-23-17 that helped steal the decider 75-49, the match 3-1 and the main event’s first prize.
Rendles completed his first ever double after winning both the competition’s Plate event with a 2-0 victory over Gateshead’s Brian Hall, and then picking up the highest break award with a nice 77 (32brk-45hd).
There was disappointment for all but two of the region’s five challengers who travelled down to Preston’s Guild Hall for the first matches of the World Snooker Association’s 2018-19 season, the Kaspersky Riga Masters Qualifiers. David Lilley’s 4-2 defeat of Hertford’s Mahmad Mian started with a break of 118 and finished with another century, a 111. Sam Craigie was awarded a walkover when his opponent, China’s Thor Chuan Leong, failed to make an appearance.
There was only doom and gloom for the remaining trio, with John Astley, Elliot Slessor and Gary Wilson all going down 3-1 to their respective opponents Ricky Walden, Marco Fu and Michael White.