Home » Club news, Jack Lisowski, Player news

Jack Lisowski joins the Grove

1 June 2010 No Comment

The Grove is delighted to welcome Jack Lisowski to its team for the 2010/11 season.

Jack is the winner of the 2009/10 PIOS and is also the new English Amatuer Champion and we’re hoping that his good form continues.

Questions and Answers with Jack:

When did you start playing snooker?

I was 7 when I got my first table, but I probably started playing when I was 5. I didn’t have a table then, I would lie on the floor hitting golf balls and ping pong balls with a pool cue.

I was fascinated by watching snooker on television and I particularly remember one match between Mark Williams and Ken Doherty which got me hooked on the game.

I wanted to join a snooker club and my dad said I could, on condition that I read Danny The Champion Of The World by Roald Dahl. I don’t know if that was because he thought it would help my snooker or whether he just wanted me to finish my reading first! I then joined Westgate Snooker Club in Gloucester, at the age of 8.

Did this give you a taste for competition at an early age?

Yes it did. I started to play in the handicap competition every Saturday and I won it soon after I joined – it was a big deal for me, I had become the youngest winner ever. I started to receive coaching from Nick Pearce, a former professional, and he gave me a lot of encouragement to carry on and try and improve my game. I continued to improve and I made my first 100 break at the age of 10, while playing Nick.

What was your best early success?

The first big tournament I went in was the Pontins Star Of The Future tournament in 2002 and I won, beating Michael White in the final 2-1, winning the deciding frame on the black ball. In the same month I won the English Under-13 title, beating Liam Highfield in the final.

When I was 13 I took apart in the European Under-19 tournament in Riga, Latvia. I lost in the quarter-final.

How did your improving snooker affect your schooling?

At the age of 16 I passed 9 GCSEs but I decided to leave school at this point and concentrate on my goal of becoming a professional player. However it was around this time that I became ill – I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. This led me to take a year out from snooker (and life in general!) The following year I was well enough to start playing again and rejoined the PIOS tour. I reached the final of the second event I played, which was a big achievement for me to have improved so much after taking so much time away from competitive playing. It gave me a lot of confidence for the following season – 2009/10.

Do you feel you came back from your break a better player and stronger person?

Yes I did. I played in all eight events in the 2009/10 PIOS tour and I won 2 events – the first and last ones. I also reached 2 semi-finals and I ended up with the highest points total in the five-year history of the competition. At the end of the 2009/10 I also won the English Amateur Championship.

What is your highest break?

My highest break in practice is 147 which I have half a dozen times. The most recent was while playing Ding Junhui in Sheffield, while breaking in a new cue.

In competition my highest break is 143 which I achieved during an English U-21 ranking tournament in 2009.

Are you enjoying life away from home?

I’m currently sharing a house with Judd Trump. We’re good friends, as Judd comes from Bristol and I’ve seen almost every weekend for years at one junior tournament or other, as he’s just a couple of years older than me.

I’m now living and practising in Romford and I have to admit I prefer it to Sheffield. There’s a definite buzz being nearer to London and Romford is a vibrant town. I hope the change of scenery will help me have an explosive start to my professional career!

Leave your response!

Add your comment below, or trackback from your own site. You can also subscribe to these comments via RSS.

Be nice. Keep it clean. Stay on topic. No spam.

You can use these tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

This is a Gravatar-enabled weblog. To get your own globally-recognized-avatar, please register at Gravatar.