OVERSEAS NEWS
New Zealand Billiards Championship
5th-9th July 1999
The New Zealand national championships attracted a field of 22 players to the Pukekohe Cosmopolitan Club, situated south of Auckland, which in 1964 had been the venue for the World Amateur Billiards Championships. The players were seeded according to current ranking positions and divided into four groups of six for the qualifying stages, although withdrawals reduced two of these groups to five players. Each group played round-robin games of two hours duration to find four players who would progress to the knock-out stages.
The semi-finals had much in common with the previous year's championship, with three of the players (Derek Gibb, Garry Oliver and Tony Stephens) again in the line-up. Gibb repeated his success over Oliver, generally having the upper hand throughout the match. Carey led Stephens by about 230 points at the end of the first session and thereafter protected this lead by some tactical safety play. At one point Stephens looked set to threaten Carey's lead, being on 90 with the balls in good position, but missed a simple pot red.
Gibb started well and at the end of the first hour was ahead 193- 111. For the remainder of the session his lead varied from 50 to 100 and the first 2 hours ended with Carey still trailing by 57 points. Midway through the second session, Gibb occupied the table for 15 minutes to compile a controlled break of 117, the highest of the final. This helped him to establish a lead of 109 points approaching the last 30 minutes of the match. At this point the situation changed dramatically, Carey making breaks of 53, 34, 26 and 11 on consecutive visits, with Gibb managing only 40 points in reply. With less than 5 minutes to go, Gibb still held a narrow six point advantage.
Carey then came to the table, his second to last visit, scoring 17 to take the lead. Now under time-pressure, Gibb's reply ended at 9, accidentally making a six-shot while potting from hand into the middle pocket, and missing the resulting cannon off the spotted red. Carey still gave Gibb one last chance after he added just 2 to lead by 3 points with about 30 seconds remaining. Unfortunately Gibb missed (a none too easy stroke) and Carey had his first New Zealand title and his tenth tournament in a row. The player's averaged 8.21 and 8.16 in a low scoring match which saw just 1,309 points and two breaks over 50 scored during the four hours
NEW ZEALAND LADIES CHAMPIONSHIP
1st-4th August 1999
Considering that organised billiards for women in New Zealand is a relatively new concept, and entry of 13 players for the inaugural National Championships was an encouraging sign for the future. With a high break of 28, the standard of play obviously still has some way to progress, but this was more than balanced by some close and exciting games. Several matches were decided at the last visit, and the quarterfinal between Sandy Claxton and Sharon Wilkie required an extra 10 minutes when the scores had finished level after the allotted 1 hour. Sharon eventually won this encounter by just 4 points and went on to reach the final where she defeated Zoe West in another exciting finish.