Father and son come through tough group

HUDDERSFIELD billiards champion Matthew Peaker and his dad David have both qualified for the next stage of the English Billiards Championships after coming through one of the toughest opening round groups for years.

All four players in Matthew’s group had reached at least the last-16 stage of the championship last season, as Peaker was joined in his group by the current English champion Rob Hall from Lincoln, Mark Graham from Middlesbrough and Matthew Jackson from Widnes.

Peaker’s first 90-minute match was against Hall, and although he started well, knocking in breaks of 55 and 50, Hall hit back with a 124 and an 80 to which Peaker replied with four breaks between 35 and 45. But it wasn’t enough as Hall pulled further ahead to run out a comfortable winner.

In his second match Peaker took full advantage of Matthew Jackson’s errors as he added another couple of half-century breaks to take the match by more than 100 points.

So the final game against Mark Graham was a winner-takes-all, with both players having won one match and playing for the second qualifying place.

In-form Graham started the stronger of the two, making breaks of 57 and 47 in his opening few visits to hold the early advantage. Peaker responded with a 62 and there wasn’t anything between them at the halfway stage.

But he began to find his scoring touch and a further two half-century breaks were enough to ensure he got the second win to secure qualification.

David was the only other Huddersfield player to enter and he faced Bradford champion Paul Devitt, Richard Locke from Barrow and Terry McAdam from Birkenhead.

In his opening match against Devitt he won by more than 130 points. But in a more technical second game, McAdam made a run of 40 to help him get over the winning line.

Peaker opened up a lead of more than 250 points in the decider against Locke and in the end, he scored an aggregate points total of just under 500 to take the win by more than 350 points.

With Devitt edging a narrow victory over McAdam it left three players on two wins. That huge second win for Peaker helped him top the group on total aggregate scores, with McAdam in second.