Jak Jones produced a strong display to beat favourite Mark Selby 10-6 and win the 2026 British Open title on Sunday in Cheltenham.
The Welshman secured his second piece of silverware of the 2026/27 campaign already, adding the Clive Everton Trophy to the Championship League Snooker crown he claimed in July.
That previous victory in Leicester represented a maiden win at this level for Jones, but he has quickly backed it up with a glory that’s even more impressive.
Jones, as he had been for several games throughout the week, began as the underdog but was never behind across a hard-fought final showdown.
The 33 year-old led four times in the first session, compiling a brace of 64 breaks and a 54 to repeatedly edge in front only for Selby to fight back on each occasion to restore parity.
The opening salvo ended all-square at four frames apiece, but the trend initially continued when they later returned for the evening bout of play.
When Selby compiled a 100 break in the tenth frame to make it 5-5 – his second century break of the contest – it looked like the ding-dong momentum would never be broken.
But Jones managed to break free from his esteemed opponent by taking the following two frames, including a crucial 12th on the black.
After the last mid-session interval, Selby pulled a frame back as he sustained his efforts to add to his China Open title from last month.
But the four-time world snooker champion looked a spent force, clearly running low on energy after a taxing period on the schedule that included three deciding-frame clashes at the start of this tournament.
A determined Jones, who also beat last week’s Wuhan Open champion Chang Bingyu and Shanghai Masters winner Judd Trump at the Centaur, seized his opportunity.
Contributions of 53 and 62 took him to the brink of glory at 9-6, and the former World Championship runner-up then finished the job in the 16th frame.
The £100,000 champion’s cheque represents one of the biggest paydays of his career and takes Jones back up number 22 in the world rankings list.
He is in a strong position to feature in all three Players Series events later in the campaign, and he will surely now be eyeing the possibility of automatic seeding for the Crucible.
Jones is 18th on the provisional World Championship seeding positions, and with confidence gained from a couple of quick-fire titles, it’ll be interesting to see how frequently he can challenge at the business end of events from now on.
Next up is the English Open in Brentwood, where Jones will once again encounter Chang Bingyu in a fascinating tie between the two most recent ranking event winners.
Featured photo credit: WST
