Jack The Lad wins the PIOS
Jack Lisowski beat Liam Highfield 6-5 in a gripping finale to PIOS Event 1 at Pontins today.
After barely a month as the new Paul Hunter Scholar, Lisowski lifted his first major silverware and installed himself as number one on the new PIOS rankings.
Highfield snatched the opening frame with a 33 clearance, but was playing catch up all the way through the match after that.
Lisowski collated runs of 31, 79, 31, 70, and 36 to move into a 4-2 lead.
Stoke's Highfield countered with 32 and came back to level at 4-4.
He soon trailed again as Liswoski's 38 sealed the frame.
In a very close and low scoring tenth frame, it came down to the pink and black and Highfield smashed in a quite unbelievable long pink to force the decider.
Lisowski gathered his thoughts and an early 49 put Highfield on the back foot in the final frame. A missed red by the Stoke player gave Lisowski the chance to cement his victory.
Naturally the eighteen year old was delighted with his performance.
"I'm overwhelmed, really happy, really chuffed."
"I've only had a month at the Academy but it's already having an impact on my game.
Well it's Daniel [Wells] really who's spent hours practicing with me and teaching me from all his experience when he was the Paul Hunter scholar."
"To go 4-2 up I was playing really well and I had a good chance, but I twitched!
Then I twitched right through the rest of the match!"
"Liam's pink to level at 5-5 was a quite incredible shot."
"Then I tried not to think about anything else and focussed on playing a tight final frame."
