Isle of Wight-born cue sports and darts player Craig Brown has celebrated a successful return to competitive action after winning 2 tournaments during a trip to Bucharest.
The 32-year-old from Newport travelled to the Romanian capital for a friend’s birthday while also taking the opportunity to compete in 2 tournaments at Sports Bar Mercury 2.
Brown, a former England international darts and snooker player, had previously won tournaments in Bucharest in January and agreed to return later in the year.
He enjoyed a clean sweep on Friday, winning 5 matches by scorelines of 6-2, 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 and 7-2 to secure the trophy.
Brown then repeated the feat on Sunday with another 5 victories, recording wins of 6-1, 6-4, 6-1, 6-1 and 7-4.
In Sunday’s final, the Islander faced Aurelian Ungureanu, who Brown says is a former Romanian national Chinese 8-ball champion and Romanian international player.
The trip also gave Brown an opportunity to practise with Babken Melkonyan, who he says has won multiple Romanian national titles in pool and snooker.
Brown has described the competitions as important warm-up events after playing in only 1 tournament during the past 3 to 4 months.
He says opportunities for competitive practice on the Isle of Wight are limited, with his previous competitive match having taken place in Kosovo in June. Before that, he competed in Moldova in April.
Brown has said:
“These are like warm-up tournaments for myself as in the last 3 or 4 months I have only played in 1 tournament.
“It was good just to play competitive matches again and also meet up with my Romanian friends.”
There was plenty of celebration following Sunday’s victory too, with Brown revealing that he spent the following 2 days carrying his trophy around bars and restaurants in Bucharest before returning to his accommodation on Tuesday morning ahead of his flight.
His attention will now turn to a busy few months of competition.
Brown says he is due to compete at the EPBF Klaipeda Open in Lithuania, an event in Serbia and a darts tournament as he returns to the oche after around 9 months concentrating on 9-ball and switching arms.
He also plans to compete at the North Cyprus 9-ball Championship, which Brown says will feature a €40,000 prize fund and some of the world’s leading 9-ball players.
Brown has thanked Catalin, Matalina, Iulian, Iustin, Babken, Aurelian, Alex and Bogdan for looking after him during his stay, including providing meals, accommodation and drinks.
