Snooker’s father and son duo Peter and Oliver Lines are building a rich affinity with the UK Championship.
These Yorkshire lads – based at the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds – stole lots of the early headlines in the tournament a year ago when dad Peter (47) defeated the defending champion Neil Robertson and son Oliver (22) enjoyed his furthest run at a ranking event to the last 16.
They’ve both started their campaigns at The Barbican impressively this year too. Peter beat China’s young Zhou Yuelong in a match which went the distance to end in a nail-biting decider. After being hauled off level at 5-5 in the morning session, they returned late last night where he wrapped up his place in the last 64.
Oliver’s 6-3 win against Mei Xiwen was more comfortable and will give the Lines family the taste that they can both enjoy another good run here when the BBC cameras arrive in town at the weekend.
Young Lines was one of the stars of the tournament a year ago. He sensationally beat Judd Trump 6-2 in the second round in addition to wins against Martin O’Donnell and Jimmy Robertson before eventually losing to Marco Fu.
Peter’s fond memories of the UK Championship go beyond last year’s heroics where he also beat Chris Wakelin as well as the former world champion Robertson. Back in 2009, he upset the odds to defeat Fu and Mark Williams to reach a career-best quarter-final.
The Lines boys are proper snooker people and well liked across the tour. Their opening round victories are a huge boost for Yorkshire snooker and they’ll know that this is a great time and event to make their mark in again.
