Sykes’s break-building masterclass in Reading

IT WAS a slight understatement when Oliver Sykes said his “scoring helped me out” after a break-building blitz in Reading.

The 20-year-old professional chalked up two centuries and 11 other efforts of more than 50 in his 19 frames during the first leg of the Cuestars Under-21 Gold Tour at The Crucible Sports & Social Club.

Conceding a 14-point start to all of his opponents, Sykes pocketed £150 in prize money after beating last season’s rankings winner, John Donovan, 2-1 in the final.

The world No 102, who as a professional receives a lifetime Cuestars membership, knocked in the day’s highest break of 130 in the third-frame decider.

“Overall, I felt like my scoring helped me out today when other parts of my game were not so good,” he said.

Sykes’s other century was a 116 against Jack Squires in the group-stages.

Also hitting three figures was Noah Gartell with a personal best 121 in the second frame of his group-stage victory over Emilio Bassili.

Noah, who dropped only one frame in the group stages, and Ryan Spratt both topped their respective seven-man round-robin groups and both lost in the last-four.

Vincent Callender, last season’s Bronze Tour rankings champion, made the quarter-finals on his Gold debut.

Sykes faces Alexander Ursenbacher in the BetVictor Northern Ireland Open on September 14 and Barry Hawkins three days later in the International Championship. Both qualifying round matches are at the Mattioli Arena, Leicester.

Many of the players who were on show in Reading will have benefited from having a minimum of six best-of-threes ahead of their trips to Leeds next weekend for the first leg of the English Junior Tour.

The event was sponsored by 900 commentator Lee ‘The Shirt’ Richardson.

Results are on snookerscores.net.

Salisbury Snooker Club hosts the second leg of nine on Sunday, October 4.