Thor Chuan Leong, Kishan Hirani, Ashley Carty and Andy Lee have taken the final four tour cards to be awarded as Q School came to a close.
For Thor, he has secured an immediate return to the professional tour like Sam Craigie, Zhao Xintong, Craig Steadman, Jak Jones, Hammad Miah and Sam Baird before him. Meanwhile, Hirani and Carty will be competing on the circuit for the first time and are the only tour rookies to come through Q School in the last three weeks, while Lee will be back on the tour for the first time since the 2008/2009 season.
Thor had to beat two other players who had just dropped off the tour on the way to securing his tour card. After a first round walkover, he took care of Malta's Alex Borg 4-1 in the second round with a high break of 80, despite losing the opening frame of the match. Following that was another 4-1 against Keith Keldie with runs of 58, 64 and 65 helping him into round four. There he faced Iceland's Kristjan Helgason and motored to a third successive 4-1 win with three breaks of above 80 on the way, closing the match with breaks of 89 and 81 in the final two frames.
That saw the Malaysian into the final day and a penultimate round fixture with Ireland's Greg Casey. Casey had come from 3-0 down to defeat Jamie Cope in the previous round, but was to show no such heroics here with Thor recording a simple 4-0 whitewash. Then in the final round, he faced Fang Xiongman who had just dropped off the tour at the end of the 2017/2018 season. Thor moved into a 2-0 lead though before Fang managed to get one on the board, but he was only able to score another 21 points in the final two frames, as Thor completed the job - only dropping four frames in the five matches he won during the final event.
Next to secure a tour card was Kishan Hirani who was the first of three rookies to qualify. Hirani had been pressing after making the fourth round in event one and the fifth round of the second event, and was able to get through when it mattered. The Welshman was fortunate as he had a walkover in both his round one and round two matches to put him straight through to the third round. There he faced recently dropped off pro Jamie Barrett in what became a very close match. Hirani took a 2-0 lead in the contest despite chances from Barrett, who then fought back to level the match at 2-2. Hirani then took a crucial fifth frame on the black, before taking the sixth on the colours to secure a 4-2 win.
Following that Hirani recorded back-to-back whitewashes, first facing Brandon Sargeant in round four, and then defeating Michael Judge in the penultimate round with a high break of 79, to secure a final round meeting with former pro Simon Bedford. Hirani lost the opener but then won the next two to open up a 2-1 lead, before a break of 72 from Bedford levelled the contest once more at 2-2. From there, Bedford would not score another point in the contest, as Hirani finished clincially with breaks of 57 and 64 to win 4-2 and secure professional status.
Ashley Carty was the youngest winner of the day at the age of 22, as he secured his professional status for the first time. Carty was in fine form in his first match, playing John Pritchett at the second round stage. Carty compiled breaks of 105, 70, 67 and 83 on the way to a 4-0 whitewash, only conceding 28 points in the process. Next up was a third round match-up with Andy Milliard where Carty surged ahead 3-0, and eventually came through 4-1 despite losing the fourth frame on the black when he was on the verge of victory. 19-year-old Tyler Rees was his opposition for round four and Carty found himself level at 2-2 before comprehensively taking the fifth frame, and closing out the match in style with a break of 94 to secure his place on the final day.
His penultimate round match paired him against recently dropped off pro Wang Yuchen. Despite the fact the Chinese player would have been considered favourite, Carty stormed into a 3-0 lead making a match high break of 65 in the process. Wang made a break of 54 to take the fourth frame but could not hold Carty off any longer as he soon secured a 4-1 win. That set up a final round meeting with India's Himanshu Dinesh Jain who had beaten recently dropped off pro Chen Zhe and ex-pro Dechawat Poomjaeng in the previous two rounds. The first four frames of a lengthy match were shared before Carty made a break of 60 on the way to going 3-2 in front and one away from his tour card. The sixth frame got off to a scrappy start before Carty forced his way in front and went on to close out a 4-2 win.
The final tour card winner of Q School 2018 was Andy Lee. The 37-year-old is back on the tour for the first time since dropping off back in 2009. He had come close in the first two events, losing to Thor Chuan Leong in round four of the first event, and eventual tour card winner Lu Ning in round five of the second event. In the first round of this final event he was in a bit of trouble at 2-1 behind against Joshua Thomond before coming through 4-2. Next up were two whitewashes, first against Dessie Sheehan and then in round three against Patrick Whelan, where Lee recorded two breaks of 62 and a further break of 79. Next up in round four he took on 21-year-old Chinese player Wang ZePeng. Lee recorded a high break of 77 on the way to a 4-2 win, putting him into the final round for the second successive event.
In the penultimate round he produced an excellent turnaround against another former professional Andy Hicks, who moved into an early 2-0 lead. Lee then took the third and made a break of 56 to level the match at 2-2. Hicks then started frame five with a break of 54 to take a 58-0 lead in the frame, only for Lee to produce a 59 clearance and move ahead 3-2 and the Hong Kong player then took the sixth frame on the colours to win 4-2 and move into the final round. In the tour card match Lee took on Kuldesh Johal who had come from 3-1 down and 56-0 down in the fifth frame to defeat James Cahill 4-3. Lee opened up with a break of 93 and then took the second as well to move into an early 2-0 lead, that soon became 3-0 despite Johal making a break of 51 in frame three. Lee missed the chance to get on the tour with a 4-0 win, losing a pink ball battle in the fourth as Johal got his first frame on the board. Johal then piled on the pressure by making a 103 break to close the gap further, but Lee held on and eventually took out a 4-2 victory.
What that means is that after nearly three weeks of competition in Burton: Sam Craigie, Jak Jones, Sam Baird, Hammad Miah, Craig Steadman, Zhao Xintong, Lu Ning, Jordan Brown, Thor Chuan Leong, Andy Lee, Kishan Hirani and Ashley Carty have all earned professional tour cards for the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 seasons.
For the rest of the competitors, the best 64 on the Q School order of merit (ordered by frames won across the three events) who did not qualify for the tour are invited to play on the Challenge Tour. The first of the ten Challenge Tour events to take place in the 2018/2019 season begins on Saturday in Burton, and a full preview with all the information you need on this new tour will be on my blog tomorrow.
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