Jak Jones produced a brilliant performance to beat Anthony McGill at the British Open on Tuesday but nearly missed the match entirely after being told the wrong start time.
Jones was in sparkling form as he knocked in breaks of 118, 131, 53 and 84 to knock out last year’s runner-up in short order.
‘I played alright in the end,’ Jones told Metro. My preparation wasn’t great, but I’ll take that. He’s a fantastic player, beat me a few weeks ago in the qualifiers, played amazing, so nice to get one back over him.’
His preparation certainly wasn’t great as Jones was told he was playing at 1pm on Tuesday and only found out he was in the morning session when fellow pro Phil O’Kane noticed a change on the World Snooker Tour website on Monday night.
‘Last night is when I got told I was playing at 10am, so thanks to Phil O’Kane that I’m here, otherwise I wouldn’t have been,’ said Jones.
‘It’s pretty poor really, but I got an email a couple of days ago from World Snooker saying that I was on at 1pm, clearly stated 1pm on the email, so I didn’t think anything else of it other than I live about an hour-and-a-half away, so I thought I’d come up this morning and leave at 10am.
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‘Then my mate Phil O’Kane called me last night and said: “Have you seen on the website you’re on at 10am?”
‘So I called World Snooker and they said, “Yeah, you’re on at 10.” So if Phil hadn’t called me, there’s no way I would have been here. So yeah, that’s pretty poor.
‘I got here about 12.45am in the end because I didn’t want to risk getting in the traffic this morning. I was absolutely raging last night.’
After the excellent display on the table, Jones joked: ‘It might have helped me actually, maybe I’ll ask them to do it next time.’
World Snooker Tour have accepted that they made an error with the email and have spoken to Jones about the situation.
Coming from further afield, McGill was in the practice room at the venue on Monday.
Jones probably doesn’t need the extra stress as he is expecting his second child in the next two weeks, which is taking his mind off his snooker.
‘Yeah, in the next 10 days or so,’ Jones said of the due date. ‘So not, ideal preparation, no. My mind’s on other things I suppose at the moment, more important things.
‘But I’ll keep turning up and then hopefully when the little one’s here we can relax.’
Jones is into the last 32 in Cheltenham, awaiting the random draw which will take place on Tuesday evening.
Fellow Welshman Jackson Page has joined him in the third round after a 4-1 win over Jimmy Robertson, while amateur player Mark Joyce has made it through to the last 32 after downing Jordan Brown 4-0.
Ukraine’s Iulian Boiko was the first through to the third round on Monday afternoon when he beat Xu Yichen 4-2.
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