Patel Wins Junior Title in Widnes

Kaylan Patel beat Dylan Smith 3-1 to win the fifth and final English Junior Tour event of the season at the Mill Brow Snooker Club in Widnes.

• Results

The 17-year-old began the year in style to impressively follow up on a memorable 2025 that saw him reach the final of the World Snooker Federation (WSF) Junior Championship and the last 16 of the Snooker Shoot Out on his full ranking event debut.

Patel was one of the eight seeded players who qualified directly for the final day, while 50 cueists competed on the Saturday for 16 places alongside them.

Among the impressive performers on the opening day were Noah Gartell and Jackson Pope, who topped their groups without dropping a frame, while eventual finalist Smith and reigning English Under-14 champion Adam Abbas were among the other notable names to qualify.

Pope continued to impress on the Sunday as the 14-year-old handed the eventual champion his only defeat of the day in the group stages, but whitewash wins against Westley Cooper and Johnny Blaise Collier were enough for Patel to advance to the quarter-finals.

Event four champion Oliver Sykes was his opponent in the last eight and, despite the 20-year-old hitting the weekend’s top break of 105 in frame four, it was Patel who succeeded in a decider against the player who had finished top of the English Junior Tour ranking list for the previous two campaigns.

Another deciding frame victory, this time against 13-year-old Abbas, then saw Patel set up a title match meeting with Smith – who had last beaten Jake Crofts to reach this stage.

Breaks of 53 and 32 helped Patel move to within one frame of victory at 2-0 and, despite a counter effort of 95 from Smith, it proved to be the 17-year-old’s day as he secured his maiden English Junior Tour title with a 3-1 victory.