Battling John in European semi-final; BILLIARDS.

TEESSIDE'S John Hartley and Michael Williams, from Hartlepool, were in action at the fourth English Billiards Open Series (EBOS) event at the Fuga Mundi Club, in Wroclaw, Poland.

Michael, 16, and the more experienced John, both had good starts to their opening group stage matches with Williams beating Patrick Stegmeir (Austria) 304-106 and Hartley beating dual English amateur champion Phil Welham (Kings Lynn) 328-160.

John also beat Przemek Pietrzkowski (Poland) 292-144, but Williams was beaten 284-164 by Phil Mumford (Bury St Edmonds).

Michael needed to win his last match to qualify but narrowly went down 221-217 to Jamie Barker from Lincoln.

Glen Blythman decided to not travel and as Hartley was due to play him, his no-show left John with a walkover.

In the last 16 stage, John had another good win when beating England international Chris Taylor (Boston) 340-269.

John's biggest win was against Roxton Chapman (Peterborough) in the quarter-finals. Breaks of 72, 61, 98 and 77 helped him win 533-220.

Chapman, a former UK champion and world No 3, had made a break of 121 the first 10 minutes, but John put in what he later described as one of his best ever performances.

Hartley then took on Paul Dunning (Chester) in the semi-finals, but could not keep up his momentum and was beaten 349-310.

Kettering's Mathew Sutton went on to win this event beating Dunning in the final 493-151.

Williams beat Marek Zubryzcki 200-114 to reach the final of the plate event, where he beat Patrick Stegmeir by 200-140.