Duane Jones (snooker player)

Duane Jones (born 30 April 1993 in Mountain Ash, Rhondda Cynon Taf) is a Welsh professional snooker player.

Junior

Jones started playing snooker aged twelve, joining his local snooker club and playing on full sized tables after being impressed at how easy Jimmy White made the game look on television. He later became Welsh under-16 captain and the youngest player to win the singles in the Aberdare Valley Snooker League.

Amateur

During the 2010/2011 season, Jones started to feature in Players Tour Championship events, as well as Q School and ranking events as a top up player. In the 2013 Welsh Open, Jones beat former World Championship semi-finalist Andy Hicks in the opening round of qualifying 4–3, before a narrow 4–3 defeat to former world champion Neil Robertson in the following round. Jones, lost at the final stage of Q School in 2013 (to Lee Spick) and 2014 (to Chris Melling), however these performance did earn him the chance to compete in more ranking events as a top up amateur player. The most notable result he recorded being a 5–2 win over top 16 player Joe Perry with breaks of 141, 137, 75 and 74 to qualify for the 2014 China Open, where he lost 5–3 to Yu Delu in the first round.

Professional

In 2015, Jones was successful in Q School and earned a tour card for the 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 seasons by beating Zhao Xintong 4–3 in his final match of Event 2 in a black ball finish in the deciding frame. His first win as a professional came at attempt number one as he defeated Sam Thistlewhite 5–1 in the 2015 Australian Goldfields Open qualifiers, before falling 5–1 to Sam Baird. Jones only won one more match in the rest of the season, which included losing his last eight.