RYAN Hughes stormed back to the top of the Cuestars South of England Under-21 Silver Tour rankings after collecting a fourth winner’s trophy this season.

The never-say-die 15-year-old from Chandler’s Ford beat David O’Callaghan (Bournemouth) 2-1 from 1-0 down in the final of the eighth leg at Jesters Snooker Club, Swindon.

Hughes, who missed a “sitter” of a frame ball in the decider before securing victory on the pink, said: “The last frame was awful.

“Neither of us were potting. It was like neither of us wanted to win.”

Earlier, Hughes won all four group-stage matches and dispatched title rival Charlie Pringle 2-0 in the last-four.

“It was the best I’d played all day, which was quite lucky for me,” said Hughes. “But he wasn’t playing as well as he could.

“I always do well in Swindon so I had that in my mind as well.”

Indeed. He won two Bronze tournaments plus the 2016 Bronze championship play-off at Jesters. In fact, he has now won nine of his 23 Cuestars under-21 singles events.

Hughes, who slipped to second place following the sixth tournament in Havant, now leads clubmate Pringle by five points going into the last two legs on home tables at Chandler’s Ford SC on April 9 and then at Salisbury SC three weeks later.

Elsewhere, 12-year-old Bowen Zhu (Chandler’s Ford) collected the Plate runners-up trophy after losing to Londoner Adam Stacey in the final.

And Riccardo Drayton (Chandler’s Ford), appearing in only his second Cuestars event, was edged 2-1 by women’s world number 45 Chloe White (Havant) in the Bronze Tour semi-finals.