Patel Wins English Under-21 Championship

Kaylan Patel defeated Daniel Boyes 4-3 at the Landywood Snooker Club to win the 2026 English Under-21 Championship.

• Results

The 17-year-old came from 3-1 down in the final to win his maiden national championship title and come through an incredible field of 65 players en route to securing the top prize.

Patel, who was just one win away from a place on the World Snooker Tour (WST) in 2025 before losing out in the final of World Snooker Federation (WSF) Junior Championship, made a strong start to the event with a clean sweep of whitewash wins to reach the knockout stages.

The opening day saw the field of 65 players, almost double the entry number from just two years ago, reduced to the last 32 and some high-quality snooker saw both Oliver Sykes and Westley Cooper compiling the tournament high break of 134 on the Saturday.

Patel had stormed past Cooper, Paul Deaville and Oliver Li in the group phase and continued his fine form by overcoming Toby Smith (3-1) before coming from 2-1 behind to beat William Chambers in a decider to advance to the quarter-finals.

Memorable runs for William Thomson, aged 13, and defending English Under-14 champion Adam Abbas were next ended by Patel as he earned consecutive 4-1 victories to set up a title match meeting with Boyes.

Boyes, a former English Under-18 champion, had reached this stage by last defeating the reigning English Under-16 champion Shaun Liu by a 4-1 scoreline with breaks of 79 and 67.

The 18-year-old continued to show his scoring prowess in the early exchanges of the final as he compiled contributions of 71, 71 and 120 to move one frame away from glory at 3-1 ahead.

Patel refused to go down without a fight, however, and a break of 53 helped him en route to forcing a final frame decider at the Landywood Snooker Club.

An early visit of 35 in frame seven ultimately proved to be enough for Patel to get over the line and lift the first national championship title of his career.