09/06/2026
Sundays Sussex Open saw twelve Surrey players take to the baise and an incredibly successful weekend was had! Three players made the Last 16 of the main, Nev Blackman going out at this stage to Gerry Fitzjohn (Kent) after victories over two fine players in Ernie Jordan (Bucks) and Paul Le Gallez (Guernsey).
Dave Jones went a step further, he set the baise alight with four 10k+ breaks against Joe Elleson (Surrey), Michael Wilson (Surrey) and Stuart Mepham (Sussex) before falling to the 2024 champion Bob Hall (Sussex).
The star of the show, however, was the incomparable Geoff Jukes. One of the greatest Surrey players ever to hold a cue, Geoff is in an elite group of four Surrey players to have won an Open, his first being the 1994 Charity Single, and this tournament marked a second and long overdue final appearance!
An opening victory over England's Matt Knight (Sussex) showed Geoff was in good touch, and he went on to dispatch Dave Howlett (Sussex) and Mark James (Sussex) before overhauling a 12k deficit against Daniel Wheal (Sussex) to reach the semi-finals. In his way there was two-time world champion Paul Sainsbury (Kent), but after a level opening leg Geoff touched on 8k to get to his second Open final!
In said final it was a fifth Sussex opponent of the day, and remarkably also a third teammate from league billiards, in Martin Smith who stood in his way. Martin managed to recover from a terribly tough opening 2k to run out the table for exactly 14,000 in the opener. Geoff therefore had a target set and, despite the occasional excursion, he appeared to be settled into his rhythm when at just over 10k there was disaster. Thick split and the red went beyond the 50, he tried to recover with a 50-30 but it didn't go. Martin mopped up and sealed a second Open title for himself, leaving Geoff to both be proud of an excellent day but also rue a missed opportunity. Well done for a fantastic performance Geoff.
In the Plate Surrey had plenty of players in action. Mark Fraser beat seven-time world champion Kevin Tunstall on his way to the semi-finals, while Liam Jones went one step further... having scared off Martin Cole (Sussex), victories over Jean Brackenridge (Sussex), Caroline Jones (Surrey) and James Whittle (Sussex) propelled him to a maiden National Final against Matt Knight (Sussex).
In another excellent final, Matt had an opening leg lead of 5.4k, only for Liam to wipe out most of that deficit with a 4.6k opener in leg 2. Matt built up a 5k lead but Liam got the balls back with five minutes to go... At this point the break seemed to be getting trickier though and he finished just short after a hugely creditable performance.
So a huge congratulations to Geoff Jukes and Liam Jones for their respective runners-up finishes and a third Surrey trophy went to Anita Blackman, who's 6k break sealed the highest Ladies break of the tournament for her. Many thanks must go to the tournament organisers, venue and caterers who made this such an excellent event!
