Jak Jones looking to a bright future after brilliant Crucible debut

The 29-year-old impressed in qualifying, beating Barry Hawkins in the last round, before shining on his first trip to the iconic theatre.

The Welshman claimed the scalps of Ali Carter and Neil Robertson, beating both pretty comfortably as he downed the Captain 10-6 and the Thunder from Down Under 13-7.

He succumbed 13-10 to Mark Allen in the last eight, but there are plenty of positives to take from his campaign and he thinks there is a lot more to come.

‘I feel like I can compete with all of the players and I don’t feel like I’m anywhere near what I can be,’ said Jones. ‘In that sense there’s a lot of positives to take, I’ve just got to use it to build for the future.

‘It’s given me the belief. I felt like I knew I was capable of doing something, but knowing yourself you can do it and actually doing it is two different things.

‘I think for next season it will definitely make a big difference for me.

‘The last two days, even when people were saying to me, “you could win this!” I didn’t really want to hear it and I never thought I could win it anyway, because I would have had Mark Selby or John Higgins next and I just felt so tired.

‘But in the future I’ll know what to expect more and I’ll have learned a lot in that sense.’

It has been the most profitable week of Jones’ life by a long way, picking up £50,000 for his efforts and climbing to number 36 in the world rankings.

MORE : Mark Allen beats Jak Jones to reach first World Championship semi-final for 14 years

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