It was a busy week on the PDC Development tour with several of our young stars descending on
Wigan for the next batch of events. Ryan Branley was one of those stars in his debut season.
The 16 year-old landed back to back last 32 finishes on the Friday before losing out to Nathan
Rafferty in the last 16 on Saturday afternoon.
There were a pair of 64 runs for Cayden Smith in his weekend in Wigan with the West Midlander
also winning all five of his opening round matches. In a mixed weekend for Keelan Kay he
reached the last 16 of event 13 before eventually losing out to event 11 winner Beau Greaves.
Event 12 would prove to be a highlight for Nathan Potter. The former JDC tour winner survived
several last leg shootouts to reach the quarter-finals where he was stopped by Angelo Balsamo.
Just 24 hours later our very own Connor Hopkins was on the charge, reaching the semi-finals of
event 14. Having upped his averages throughout the afternoon, a 5-1 win over Owen Roelofs
would put him into a the final four. It wasn’t to be at that stage for Hopkins as he was defeated
by Marvin van Velzen but plenty to take from a positive weekend.
Elsewhere there was a pair of last 64 runs for Fabian Tapner in a testing weekend, whilst Keelan
Kay picked up a last 16 run. Riley Rees-Tucker and Jurjen van der Velde also picked up a number
of wins throughout a terrific weekend at the Robin Park Tennis Centre.
Outside of Wigan Jack Nankervis picked up another win at Superleague, hitting a maximum on
the way to a 4-2 victory. It was also confirmed that Nankervis along with Ryan Branley would be
representing England at the JDC World Cup in Gibraltar this year. This comes as Aidan O’Hara
ups his effort to make team Ireland as he clinched a qualifier win over Jamie French with a 90
average.
