TAVISTOCK cuemeister Andy Hicks has put retirement firmly on hold after reaching the quarter-finals of the UK Snooker Championship.

The 48-year-old, who admitted hanging up his cue was a distinct possibility before a dramatic upturn in his fortunes, reached the quarter-finals for the first time in 26 years.

Hicks eventually bowed out of the tournament in the last eight, where he lost 6-1 to Barry Hawkins. But the man from Tavistock’s Chapel Street admitted his success in reaching the latter stages of ranking tournaments had convinced him that he had a few more years of playing at the highest level yet.

He told Times Sport: ‘I had sort of retired by the age of 40, because I was out of the world’s top 64 players. I’ve been in the game 30 years, but the one thing about snooker is that it doesn’t matter so much if you get older as it does if you are a football player, as long as you look after yourself and keep yourself reasonably fit.

‘Experience in the game counts for a lot and you’ve got to be thankful that you can still compete at a high level at the age of 50. I come from the class of ‘92, which would include players like John Higgins and Ronnie O’Sullivan and look what they’ve achieved.’

Victories against Liang Wenbo (6-5), Michael Holt (6-5) and Dominic Dale (6-5) saw Hicks into a last-16 clash with world No. 22 David Gilbert in front of the BBC cameras last Thursday.

An 81 break meant Gilbert took the first frame convincingly, but visits of 44 and 67 saw the world No. 102 get one back at the first time of asking.

Hicks looked well set in the third frame before a missed black saw his break stall on 35 – Gilbert replying with 54 to take it.

The pair would go into the mid-session interval on level terms, though, with Hicks producing a beautiful break of 88 – his highest of the match – to make it two-apiece.

Gilbert won the positional battle to take the fifth frame before a knock of 67 saw Hicks reply again in the sixth.

Frame seven went the way of Gilbert and eight went to Hicks, thanks to a tidy break of 82, before the 1995 semi-finalist took the lead for the first time when he won a battle of attrition in the ninth.

A cagey 10th frame went Gilbert’s way to set up a fourth final frame showdown of the week for Hicks – which he duly took thanks to a 56 break and some textbook positional shots.

Having come through that match as an 8/1 outsider with the bookies, the ‘Cream of Devon’ quickly found himself four frames down against world No. 14 Hawkins in Friday’s quarter-final.

Hicks clawed back the fifth frame but Hawkins took the sixth and seventh to reach the last four, where he would be beaten by eventual winner Zhao Xintong.

Hicks earned himself a two-year card on the World Snooker tour back in 2019 when he came through Q School. He had previously been relegated from the tour in 2013.

Last week’s run is estimated to have earned him £60,000 in prize money and a jump up the world rankings to No.73. It was his best showing the competition since 1995, when he reached the semi-finals. Hicks, who now lives in Cornwall, said: ‘It would have been nice to have reached the semi-finals again, but I was pleased with the way everything went.

‘My local club, Crackington Haven, put in a star (full competition) table in for me and I have to say I’m grateful to them because it has certainly helped me with practicising over the last 12 months.

‘In fact, I feel like I’m practising and playing really well at the moment and long may it continue.’

Hicks, in a post-match interview after getting into the quarter-finals, added: ‘Just to have another two years on the tour, I thought that’s great, because if I hadn’t have got back on the tour I definitely would have retired.

‘So I thought I’ve got two years on the tour and that will take me until I’m 50 years old, and then we’ll see what happens from there.’

Andrew Symons, who has known Hicks for more than 30 years and enjoyed success on the amateur snooker circuit himself, said he was ‘really really proud’ that his friend was doing so well.

‘I started playing snooker at the age of six and at that time Andy used to clean the tables at the Pixon Lane Snooker Club in Tavistock,’ he said. ‘I played against him and used to practice with him. I followed him his whole career, it’s incredible what he has achieved, he is an extremely talented player.

‘To be able to comeback like that at the ripe old age of 48 is pretty special. I hope that he can keep that going and we see him in more quarter- inals and see him go even further.

‘For years and years he really struggled to win deciding frames and in that last match he won four deciding frames on the bounce.’

Andrew, who plays in the Tavistock Snooker League and won the Southern Amateur Snooker Championship back in 2005, said he was supposed to play a practice match last week with Hicks but he was too busy getting to the quarter finals of the UK championships!

‘He just keeps winning,’ he said, ‘but hopefully we will have a practice match soon. Andy is just phenomenal in practice. He mostly comes out on top but a couple of times I have got the better of him. Andy will probably do an exhibition event in Tavistock next year so people who play in the local leagues will get a chance to play him.’