14 year-old Ramona Belmont won the 2001 New Zealand Women's Billiards Championship when she defeated reigning champion Sharon Wilkie 279-264 in the final at the Gisborne Cosmopolitan Club. This was the third running of this event, which took place over 1st-2nd August, and it attracted seven entries. The two-hour final was a closely contested and was only decided in the last few minutes. With both players neck-and-neck Belmont used the two and a half minutes added for time taken during their game, to edge ahead and secure victory by 15 points. In the semi-finals (90 minutes), Belmont had beaten Annette Moeahu 220-158 and Sharon Wilkie defeated Sally Clucas by 264-194.
Making his sixth appearance in the final, Peter deGroot eventually succeeded in his ambition when he captured the New Zealand Billiards Championship at the Invercargill WMC on 17th July 2001. In the four-hour final he defeated reigning champion Wayne Carey 860-606, making a best break of 111. Carey, who was going for his third consecutive title, found himself training 461-223 at the interval to an opponent growing in confidence. Unable to make any impression, his best break, 72, came the last 15 minutes of the match, but this only served to reduce de Groot's winning margin to 254 points.
In the semi-finals, de Groot had narrowly defeated last year's runner- up Gary Oliver by just 20 points, while Carey had made a break of 109 in defeating Paul Stocker 889-692. One of the best performances of the championship came from Gary Oliver, who, in his qualifying match against Gerry Wake, made consecutive contributions of 100 and 129 (the latter being the highest break of the competition) in a two-hour total of 821.
A private tour to New Zealand was arranged by a groupof English players as a follow-up to the successful Loose Cannons tour of last year. Shrugging off the jet- lag of their long trip, Peter Shelley, Brian Harvey, Paul Dunning and Bill Andress were soon in action against an Auckland representative team following their arrival on Monday 8th October. The Auckland squad comprised Grant Hayward, Wayne Carey, Ron Milicich and Gerry Wake.
The format paired each of the four players in one-hour matches against every member of the opposing team, to give 16 matches in all. The event took place at Snookerworld, Royal Oak, Auckland and the tourists emerged winners by 14-2. Peter Shelley (104) and Brian Harvey (110) both made centuries and went through their matches undefeated. Grant Hayward and Wayne Carey were the winners for the Auckland team, both victories being against Paul Dunning. Hayward is a recent New Zealand 9-ball champion who is taking a break from pool this season and has been practising his billiards with Wayne Carey—evidently with some success.