Irishman Ryan Cronin played the match of his life today in beating Akani Songsermsawad fromThailand 5 frames to 3 in the World under 21 Snooker Championship here in Wuxi in China to reach the last 16 round.

Ryan opponent was the Q-finalist in last year’s world championship in Canada and was seen as one of the favourites for the title this time around.

The young Cork man was in great form in getting off to a great start leading 2 -0 but back came the Thailand champion to level at 2-2 only for the Irish number 1 under 19 player last season to go up in the gears to lead 4 -2,  back came the Thai player to win the seventh frame to close the gap to 4-3 but Ryan won the match 5 frames to 3

Team coach PJ Nolan was delighted with Ryan’s win and he deserves it after all the long hard hours on the practice table he done in Cork preparing for this event. Ryan is playing with so much confidence and he is determinant to play his best snooker tonight in the last 16 round against Lu Haotian from China at 7pm local time.

More good news for the PJ Nolan Academy was his player Shachar Ruberg from Israel who would be well know to all the Irish lads had a superb win 5 frames to 1 over the reigning Under 18 European Junior Champion  Jamie Clarke from Wales.

There is no live scoring at this event but www.ribsa.ie will now be updating each match frame by frame of Ryan's and David's match to keep everyone informing at home.