“My Facebook notifications have gone mad,” says Jackson Page at the end of the week of his young life. “It’s been a mad few days, to be honest.”

The raw facts were these: the 15‑year‑old from Ebbw Vale played his first professional tournament, as a wildcard at the Welsh Open in Cardiff, 25 miles from home. In the first round he came back from 3-1 down to beat the world No123 Jason Weston 4-3 on a re-spotted black and then defeated the No78 John Astley by the same score. In the third round, he lost 4-0 to the world No4 and 2011 World Championship finalist Judd Trump, who went on to reach the final.

For the beard that belies his age, his cheeky grin and a brazen, fearless style, Page departed a cult figure, while his performances left him £3,500 richer. He caught the eye for his pacy play and eagerness to attempt ambitious, attacking shots, and he is direct in explaining what his targets were for the week: “I’ve surpassed my expectations,” he says, “but I’d seen where Judd was in the draw, and knew I wanted to play him. I knew I could win the first game and in the second I was playing for the chance to face Trump. That spurred me on.” He pauses, before saying with a hefty dose of understatement: “Yeah, I played all right this week.”

A snooker player is nothing without a natty nickname, and Page’s crazy week earned him a third – “Action Jackson”. When he won the world under-18 championship in Belgium last year (he is also the European under-18 runner-up, having lost to Tyler Rees, who is two years older and from Llanelli, in the final) they called him Rampage, while Welsh Snooker named him Teen Wolf, for that beard. “I’ve had it since I was 13,” he says. “Some of the older lads at school can’t even grow one hair on their chin. It’s all right at this length, but if it got much longer I might struggle to get the cue through it.”

This is an endearingly homey story. Page’s tearful father Andrew, who works as a security guard, was the first person to greet him when his matches finished, and each night he headed home, where his schoolmates at Ebbw Fawr Learning Community, as his Facebook activity suggests, have been left slack-jawed at his progress. He admits he would not have wanted his breakout week to take place anywhere else.

“If I was in another country,” he says, “I wouldn’t have had such amazing support or as much atmosphere out there. The supporters helped a lot. Just to be in my own country was very special. I’ve just been embracing the experience, and to have enjoyed it while I was at it – that’s what I was after.”

Page was given a small snooker table by one of his grandfathers when he was only three years old. “At weekends I would play with him,” he says. “He was a decent player himself, that’s where it all started.” By seven, Page had been given coaching by Lee Walker, a quarter-finalist at the 1997 world championship, and he first qualified to represent Wales aged nine. By 11, he knew this was the career for him.

He cut his teeth at Tredegar Snooker Centre, which is owned by the two-times world champion Mark Williams, a key figure in his development. He believes that playing against older folk growing up is a reason he was so at ease last week.

Each evening either Page’s father or mother, Clare, a manager in the care industry, would drive him from school to the snooker hall, and he would spend Saturdays there too before playing a tournament on more than 30 Sundays a year. He is at Tredegar again as we speak, with the clang of cue ball on colour echoing down the line.

What was best of all in Page’s remarkable week? The time he had off school, naturally. While, like many a teenager, he speaks with contempt for the classroom (he does not mind science but has no time for English), it turns out he is in the top set, which is why, even with his GCSEs looming, the school is happy for him to take so much time off to pursue the sport.

“I’ve always raced out of school to get to the table,” he says. “So this week has been pretty ideal. It’s half-term now, then I go back for a week and after that I’m off to Cyprus, then Sheffield for the world championship qualifiers. After that it’s not long until I’ll go to Q [qualifying] School. I can’t believe my luck missing so much.”

As Trump was competing in the final in Cardiff, Page enjoyed a sane end to a “surreal” week with a tournament in Cwmbran. He won, of course. It was, you sense, just a brief step back into a previous life for a young man going places.