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Glorious Gradinari Defends English Under-18 Title
Vladislav Gradinari defeated Edward Jones 5-3 at the Landywood Snooker Club to win the Landywood English Under-18 Championship title for a second successive year.
The 17-year-old became the first player since Gary Wilson in 2002-2003 to successfully defend the Under-18 national crown by winning through a strong field of 62 cueists.
Gradinari, who has now won four national championship titles across Under-18, Under-16 and Under-14 levels, began strongly with group stage wins over Corey Judge, Darsh Gohil and Niall Harrison to advance to the final day.
Having not dropped a single frame in the first phase, Gradinari continued this dominant trend by beating Charlie Hewson, Jack Wilding and Harry Goddard each by a 3-0 scoreline to reach the semi-finals.
There he faced reigning English Under-21 champion Kaylan Patel, who had fired in the tournament high break of 127 in his quarter-final victory over Shaun Liu to make it to the last four.
Gradinari was in no mood to lose the title he won twelve months ago, however, and four contributions over 30 helped him to a 4-0 success over Patel to set up a title match meeting with Jones.
Breaks of 52, 36 and 32 saw Gradinari race into a 3-0 lead in the best-of-nine frame final as he made it 22 frames without reply at the Landywood Snooker Club.
The streak was ended when Jones, aged 17, rallied and fired in impressive breaks of 78, 62 and 72 to restore parity in the final. Gradinari remained unphased, however, and took the next to move within one of glory before compiling a break of 40 to get over the line and secure the title.
