OVERSEAS NEWS

New Zealand

Ranking Tournaments

New Zealand Champion
Derek Gibb (left) with No.1
ranked Wayne Carey.

The North Island Billiards Championship was held
at the Mt. Maunganui RSA, from 10th-12th May. This
was won by Wayne Carey (Auckland), the current New
Zealand No.1, who defeated Derek Gibb (Capital
City), the current New Zealand champion, in a low
scoring, four hour final. Carey was 190 behind with
one hour to go when he made a break of 93. From this
point he slowly took control of the play and ran out
the winner by just 22 points.

Derek Gibb made the highest break of the competition
with 165 in an earlier round. This was also a personal
best, superseding his 154 unfinished set in the 1998
New Zealand Championship. Gibb originates from
Blyth in the North East of England, but went to New
Zealand on a working holiday 27 years ago and has
remained there ever since.

The Hawkes Bay Billiards Championship was held at the
Cosmopolitan club, Napier on 19th-20th June 1999. The tournament
venue is situated on the east coast of the North Island, approximately
half way between Auckland & Wellington, and it attracted a very good
turnout of 24 players. Most of the top players from the North Island
played, but travel costs precluded the entry of any players from the
South Island.

Among the field was Annette Moeahu who is currently ranked No.5 in
the Women´s snooker list. This is thought to be the first time a woman
has entered an open ranking Billiards tournament in New Zealand.
Earlier this year, Annette won the inaugural Billiards tournament for
women in New Zealand, and the Hawkes Bay B-grade championship
(open to both men and women).

Players were seeded into six groups, based on current NZ rankings
which played round-robin format. The top two players from each group,
plus the four best 3rd place players qualified for the knock-out stages.
All games were 2 hours. The groups saw no surprises, as all the top
seeds went through.

This trend continued in the last 16, where Ray Habgood´s win by 68
points against Malcolm Cooke was the closest game, as all the fancied
players again progressed comfortably. Darcey Boyce recorded the
highest aggregate with 743.

The quarter-finals saw Paul Stocker complete a comfortable win over
Tony Stephens. Merv Stewart always seemed to have the edge against
Ron Milicich, especially in the second part of the game, when he drew
away to win by 72 points. Wayne Carey´s game against Darcy Boyce
was a lot closer. Although Boyce was presented with plenty of chances
in the last 30 minutes, he couldn´t capitalise on them and Wayne Carey
managed to stay in front, playing good steady billiards. Derek Gibb
established a 190 point lead against Ray Habgood with approx 45 mins
to go. At this stage Habgood made a very nice 82 break (mainly top of
the table) to reduce arrears, but was unable to make further inroads as
Gibb finished winner by 97 points.