Yorkshire Snooker Championship Qualifier 1

The first qualifying event for this year’s Yorkshire Snooker Championship saw 39 hopefuls line up ready to play at the Northern Snooker Centre. The draw was made at 10am with play commencing shortly afterwards. After eight hours play, 8 qualifiers had emerged who will now go through to contest the last 16 on Sunday May 15th at the same venue.

The qualifiers were as follows-

Dan was first to qualify, finishing around 13:30. He defeated Ryan Bailey 3(80)-1 and Josh Walker 3(65)-0 to book his place in the last 16.

Second through at around 13:45 was York’s rising star Liam Pullen. The current Yorkshire Under 19 Champion breezed through without dropping a frame, beating Kyle Holland 3(89,100)-0 and Mohammed Ishtiaq 3(81,54)-0, recording the day’s only century break along the way.

Next player through at around 14:45 was Harrogate’s Gyles Behbood. Gyles defeated Michael Stead 3(52,60)-0 and then had a much tougher match against Michael Whaley, finally winning 3(75)-2 to go through to the next stage.

Fourth player through at around the same time was another Harrogate Cueist-Tom Harris. A 3-1 win against Mike Lucas was followed by another 3-1 victory over Isa Ishtiaq to see him safely through.

Gary made the trip over from the east coast worthwhile by securing the 5th qualifying spot at around 15:00. Wins over Nathan Walton (3-0) and Andrew Greaves (3-2) meaning he makes the journey again on the 15th May.

 6. Shaun Wilkes (Barnsley)

Another player to qualify without losing a frame was Barnsley’s Shaun Wilkes. After a quick fire 3-0 victory over Stephen Broadhead Shaun had to wait a while for his next opponent and it was 16:30 before he defeated Stuart Jauncey 3-0 to claim his qualification spot.

Penultimate player through at around 18:00 was Steve Peace. Drawn in the preliminary round Steve had to defeat three players to qualify and did so by beating Chris Evans 3-2, Andy Blamire 3-1 and finally Marc Harman 3-1.

Final player through and the third qualifier from the Barnsley area was Gary Hambleton. Gary Had 3-1 wins over Lee Atkinson and Kaif Shazad before facing Richard Binns in what was the last match to finish at around 18:30. Richard had a long wait between matches and found himself 2-0 down before fighting back to level 2-2. When he took a 27-point lead in the decider it looked like the comeback was complete but Gary had other ideas and a fine 40 break put him back in front. In a match played in tremendous spirit Gary eventually potted brown and blue to lead by 14, and when he finally potted the pink the match and the day was complete.

Thanks to our roaming referee Andy Kitson and to our sponsor the Northern Snooker Centre for use of the facilities.

We do it all again on the 10th of April.

 

 

Paul Marlow Asst Sec
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