Fresh from his exploits at the European Games, Paul Drinkhall leads a strong entry to the Heritage Oil Cup.
The England star, who reached the semi-finals in Baku before missing out on a medal in a dramatic play-off for bronze, is heading to the event at the K2 in Crawley on July 4 and 5.
A familiar opponent will also be at the K2 in the shape of Hungary’s world No 63 Adam Pattantyus, who Paul beat in the last 32 in Baku.
Among the other entries are England No 4 Darius Knight, No 5 and Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Danny Reed, No 6 and Grand Prix series champion Chris Doran.
A strong home countries presence includes Scotland’s No 1 Gavin Rumgay and his Welsh counterpart Ryan Jenkins.
Among the other big attractions are Italy’s world No 104 Niagol Stoyanove, who defeated Dimitij Ovtcharov in the Belgium World Pro Tour earlier this season, Slovakian world No 132 Lubomir Pistej and Polish twins Piotr and Pawel Chmeil.
Other Men’s event competitors include: David McBeath, Mike O’Driscoll, Matt Ware, Craig Bryant, Kazeem Adeleke, Adam Nutland, Danny Lawrence, Gavin Maguire, Luke Savill, Ryan Fellows, Sherwin Remata and Rajan Waterman.
The Women’s event looks equally exciting with a number of overseas players participating, including world No 47 Xiao Xin Yang of Monaco, Hungarian WR 101 Petra Lovas and last year’s champion and former world No 44 Fangxian Yi.
On the home front, England Commonwealth Games aces Tin-Tin Ho and Karina Le Fevre are on the entry list, as is Welsh No 1 Charlotte Carey, a semi-finalist last year.
Agnes Le Lannic of France, who also reached the semis last year and Portuguese No 2 Ana Neves are also appearing in Crawley.
Both the Men and the Women are competing for a prize fund of £11,750 which includes £2,000 first prize to both the Men’s and Women’s winners.
The event format is six groups of four in both the Men’s and Women’s events on the Saturday and then knockout on the Sunday.
Tickets are available at the door or can be purchased online at seetickets.com.
The organisers would once again like to thank Heritage Oil for their generosity and support of the competition.
Paul Stimpson
June 24, 2015