English Junior Tour Glory for Gradinari

Vladislav Gradinari defeated Oliver Sykes 3-2 to win the second English Junior Tour event of the season at the Woodside Snooker Centre in Dereham.

• Results

The success saw the 17-year-old, who is a former English Under-16 and Under-18 champion, lift the second English Junior Tour title of his career and climb to the top of the ranking list after two events.

As one of the eight seeded players, Gradinari entered the event on the Sunday while 50 competitors battled it out on the opening day for the 12 additional places.

The most impressive day one displays came from Luke Flanagan, Logan Hall, Asten Sahota and Yashnai Parmar who each registered a clean sweep of wins without dropping a single frame en route to qualification.

Gradinari began his event with a confident group stage display as he comfortably dispatched of Jimmy Pattrick, Jake Crofts and Sahota to earn a direct passage into the quarter-finals where he would take on O’Shay Scott.

Scott took the opener with a break of 71 but Gradinari quickly hit back with visits of 53 and 32 to help him to a 3-1 victory before defeating Dylan Smith by the same scoreline in the last four.

Sykes, who topped the English Junior Tour ranking lists for the last two seasons, was the opponent in the title match after he earned a final place with back-to-back whitewash wins against Crofts and Daniel Boyes.

The first four frames of the final were shared with Gradinari hitting the highest break of 72 in the second. It was a high quality contest that went down to wire but ultimately it was the 17-year-old who fired in a break of 48 to win the decider by a single point and take home the title.

The English Junior Tour continues at the The Crucible Club in Newbury on 22-23 November. Enter now.