Duane Jones (born 30 April 1993) is a Welsh professional

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...

player.

Career

Junior

Jones started playing snooker aged twelve, joining his local snooker club and playing on full sized tables after being impressed at how easy

Jimmy White James Warren White (born 2 May 1962) is an English professional snooker player who has won three seniors World titles. Nicknamed "The Whirlwind" because of his fluid, attacking style of play, White is the 1980 World Amateur Champion, 2009 ...

made the game look on television. He later became Welsh under-16 captain and the youngest player to win the singles in the Aberdare Valley Snooker League.

Amateur

During the 2010–11 season, Jones started to feature in

Players Tour Championship The Players Tour Championship was a series of snooker tournaments comprising some minor-ranking events played in Europe, and an Asian leg comprising some minor-ranking events in Asia. The series concluded with a Grand Final, where qualification ...

events, as well as Q School and ranking events as a top up player. In the 2013 Welsh Open, Jones beat former World Championship semi-finalist

Andy Hicks Andrew Hicks (born 10 August 1973) is an English professional snooker player. Nicknamed "The Cream of Devon", Hicks was a semi-finalist at both the World Snooker Championship and UK Championship in 1995, and the same stage at four other ranking ...

in the opening round of qualifying 4–3, before a narrow 4–3 defeat to former world champion

Neil Robertson Neil Robertson (born 11 February 1982) is an Australian professional snooker player who is a former world champion and former world number one. The only Australian to have won a ranking event, he is also the only player from outside the United ...

in the following round. Jones, lost at the final stage of Q School in 2013 (to

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) and 2014 (to

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), however these performance did earn him the chance to compete in more ranking events as a top up amateur player. The most notable result he recorded being a 5–2 win over top 16 player Joe Perry with breaks of 141, 137, 75 and 74 to qualify for the 2014 China Open, where he lost 5–3 to

Yu Delu Yu Delu (; born 11 October 1987) is a former professional snooker player from the People's Republic of China. He is currently serving a 10 years and 9 months ban for match-fixing from 25 May 2018 until 24 February 2029. The ban was announced on ...

in the first round.

Professional

In 2015, Jones was successful in Q School and earned a tour card for the 2015–16 and 2016–17 seasons by beating

Zhao Xintong Zhao Xintong (; born 3 April 1997) is a Chinese professional snooker player. Long considered one of the brightest talents in the game, he won his first ranking title (also his first Triple Crown title) at the 2021 UK Championship, defeating Luc ...

4–3 in his final match of

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in a black ball finish in the deciding frame. His first win as a professional came at attempt number one as he defeated Sam Thistlewhite 5–1 in the

2015 Australian Goldfields Open The 2015 Australian Goldfields Open was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 29 June and 5 July 2015 at the Bendigo Stadium in Bendigo, Australia. It was the first ranking event of the 2015/2016 season. Judd Trump ...

qualifiers, before falling 5–1 to

Sam Baird Sam Baird (born 17 June 1988) is an English former professional snooker player. He first entered the professional tour for the 2009–10 snooker season, 2009/10 season, by winning the EBSA Pro-Ticket Tour Play-offs. Career 2011/2012 season Bair ...

. Jones only won one more match in the rest of the season, which included losing his last eight. Jones qualified for the

2016 Indian Open The 2016 Indian Open was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 5–9 July 2016 at the HICC Novotel Hotel in Hyderabad, India. It was the second ranking event of the 2016/2017 season. Hyderabad hosted the event f ...

with a 4–2 victory over

and narrowly beat

Liam Highfield Liam Highfield (born 1 December 1990) is an English professional snooker player. He turned professional in 2010 after finishing second in the 2009/2010 PIOS rankings. He plays left-handed. Career Amateur years In the 2007/2008 season, Highfiel ...

4–3 in the first round to reach the last 32 of a ranking event for the first time, where he lost 4–1 to

Peter Ebdon Peter David Ebdon (born 27 August 1970) is an English former snooker player. The winner of the 2002 World Snooker Championship, Ebdon won nine world ranking events, placing twelfth on the all-time list of ranking tournament winners. In addit ...

. He got to the second round in three of the four Home Nations tournaments, but was knocked out each time. He finished the year outside the top 64, but immediately regained his professional status with a victory in event two of Q-School. Wins over

Simon Bedford Simon Bedford (born 8 February 1976) is an English former professional snooker player. Career Bedford's best performance in a professional ranking event was to qualify for the 1998 World Championship; he beat Gary Wilkinson 10–9, before l ...

, Peter Delaney, Declan Brennan, Hao Hu and Alex Davies ensured Jones would be back on the tour for the next two seasons.

Performance and rankings timeline

Career finals

Amateur finals: 3 (2 titles)

References

External links

Duane Jones
at ''CueTracker.net: Snooker Results and Statistic Database''
Duane Jones
at ''worldsnooker.com'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Duane 1993 births Welsh snooker players Living people People from Mountain Ash, Wales Sportspeople from Rhondda Cynon Taf