THREE of the first four matches in the opening week of the inaugural York Masters were settled by deciding frames.

Four-time Scruton Cup winner Clive Whyte was edged out 3-2 by Glen Mountain in the first match of the tournament, which sees many of York and North Yorkshire’s best Conservative Club and York CIU division one players going head-to-head over the coming months.

Daz Colledge prevailed 3-2 over John Dowd and Paul Mahoney sneaked past Mark Hodson by the same scoreline.

In the other match of the first week of group games, Pete Glover saw off Jordan Worobec 3-0.

Twenty-four entrants have been drawn into eight groups of three with the top two in each going through to the last 16.

The event is being played on Adrian Barraclough’s World Snooker standard tournament table above his Quickslide showroom in Layerthorpe.

The group stages see matches played over a best-of-five frame format.

Whyte was 2-1 up in his match against Mountain but the latter dug in and, with Whtye in command in the colours in the final frame, reeled them off to win on the black ball.

Dowd took an early 2-0 lead against Colledge, who fought back to win the next three despite a foul on the pink ball in the fifth frame which gave his opponent an outside chance of taking the match.

The second week of matches got under way on Monday night with Dan Potter hitting breaks of 45, 35 and 30 in a 3-0 victory over Kevin Gall.

Tournament director Richard Lillie said the quick table conditions were proving to be a “real leveller” in the first few matches.

“The tournament seems to have started off well, we have had a few good close games to start with and some players are having to make an adjustment to the table,” he said.

“We are seeing that especially on the long shots. It’s been hard to keep the ball under control and it is running a lot quicker than people expect.

“Once everyone has played on it, the second group games will be to a bit of a higher standard. I think there’s been a few nerves as well.”

For more information about the event, and to watch the matches on live streaming, log on to www.yorkmasters.co.uk