Daniel Wheal make his first Open Final when finishing runner-up to Paul Sainsbury (Kent) at the Sussex Open at the Roffey Club on Sunday 4th June.
Paul was superb all day, his only real scare coming in the semi-final against Jason Neal (Northants) when he tried very hard to peg his opening break with the bar just seconds away. In the Final Paul went off with 5k, and was first to get them back and he built a substantial lead. Dan was off early but got them back however the task proved too great and Paul was a worthy winner
Daniel deserves huge credit for a great performance to get to his first final, with two big scalps on the way, he was immense against Matt Jones (Bucks) in the quarter-final running the table out for 18k and whilst Matt was on course he pegged a split to give Dan the win. In the semi-final Dan took on Kevin Tunstall in a very tense match. KT was off early and Dan took control with a very good break before a late miss gave Kevin the chance to close the gap to nearly 5k with Dan’s break to come. Again Dan looked comfortable, getting to 6k before a misjudgement on a split took out the left hand peg and a gasp from those watching. As previously the balls were awkward and Kevin could not get them back, Dan managed to and a steady break gave him the win.
In the Plate final the standard was superb with Mark Trafford (Oxon) running the table out with a brilliant break of over 24k, to his credit Stephen Coleman (Northants) also ran the table out making over 15k.
Dawn Jordan (Bucks) won the ladies high break with 4380 and Joe Oakley the high break of the day (in the main) with a fantastic 22,400 play out.