Craycraft: I had no expectations

NEIL Craycraft arrived in Newbury with low expectations for the first leg of the Cuestars Seniors (40+) tour.

But the 52-year-old from Didcot was last man standing at The Crucible Sports & Social Club.

The World Seniors Tour player explained that he had not been able to practise much recently but this seemed to free him up and by his own admission he played some really good solid snooker throughout the day.

Due to the late finish, Craycraft and runner-up Paul Davis agreed to split the £300 prize money and play a single frame for the ranking points.

After topping a tough round-robin group, life got even tougher for Craycraft. In the quarter-finals, he ended the remarkable run of defending champion Dharminder Singh Lilly (Fareham), who had won all nine of the Seniors events he had entered since January, 2024. And then he overcame former rankings winner Matt Ford (Bracknell) in the last-four.

Martin Wallace (Wokingham) posted his highest ever Cuestars break of 92 in the round-robin group stage.

It was a good start to the 2025/26 campaign by last season’s rankings runner-up Davis (Wareham) who enjoyed knockout wins against Jason Pusser (Bournemouth) in the quarter-finals and Paul Morrison (Ashford) in the semis.

Pete Ebbins slammed in a long black against Matt Callow (Midhurst) to record a rare frame win. The Bournemouth cueist attends every Cuestars Seniors event and works hard on his game away from the tournaments to try to improve and become as competitive as he can.

The event attracted an impressive 38 runners which would have been more if the M3 hadn’t been closed in both directions because of a police incident.

Organisers thanked the team at The Crucible for sponsoring the event and looking after them all.

The Crucible Sports & Social Club, Reading, hosts the second leg of eight on Sunday, October 26.

All results are now on snookerscores.net.

PRIZE MONEY: Winner and runner-up £150 each, semi-finalists £50, quarter-finalists £20.

Link for groups:
https://snookerscores.net/tournament-manager/cuestars-seniors-tour-event-1/groups

Link for knockout:
https://snookerscores.net/tournament-manager/cuestars-seniors-tour-event-1/knockout

Link for breaks:
https://snookerscores.net/tournament-manager/cuestars-seniors-tour-event-1/breaks

By Chris Wyatt and Tim Dunkley

Picture: Neil Craycraft (left) and Paul Davis