I have watched you play on nearly thirty occasions and have thus witnessed many of your great breaks, including more than one four-figure one. English professionals have striven for years to reach the 1,000, but so far unsuccessfully, and it remained for you— a mere boy— to come and show them how to do it.
Up to the present time you have, I believe, made no fewer than twenty-one of these breaks, the biggest being 2,196, and had not this brought you to "game," no one knows how many points you would have added to it To-day you are the billiard wonder of the world. As you know, there is no finality about billiards, and thus, although you are already the greatest scorer, the zenith of your skill and fame ma; be in the far-distinct future.
Peall made his record spot-stroke break of 3,304 at the age of 36; John Roberts was at his very best between the ages of 40 and 50 and actually made his record break when 57, and Maurice Vignaux, the French player, won the championship of the world at the cannon game at the age of 61. Inman and Reece are in the thirties and are every now and then beating their previous records, and Harverson, who is considerably older, is still going ahead.
Just as these and other professionals have done better and better with advancing years, so will you. To-day you are only nineteen. In a few years' time, with more strength and stamina, you may do such things that your records of to-day will be almost forgotten.
There are any number of players who say that you are only great at the in-off game, and that, were centre-pocket play limited to two consecutive in-offs, you would become a very ordinary player. Men who argue like this cannot have taken into consideration the perfect cueing, the accuracy of contact, and the judgment of strength that are required— for some hundreds of consecutive strokes—to make one of your big breaks off the red. You play your centre-pocket in-offs so easily and quickly, and apparently with so little thought, that the impression you convey to most players is that each stroke is the same as the last, whereas in almost every case each differs from the previous one. Very little consideration should make it clear to anyone that your judgment of strength, accuracy of contact, and cue delivery, must inevitably make you great at any branch of the game which you may elect to play.
You have become a great favourite with English amateurs as much on account of your modesty as by your play. In fact, on the many occasions on which I have been in your company you have not said a word about yourself. You have endeared yourself to English players, too, by the way in which you have played all your games. You have never waited for your opponent in order to make a close game of it and thus deceive the public. You have always gone the whole way and won by as big a margin as possible. We know that this is what you will always do, for you are as straight and as free from wobbling as is your own cue delivery.
I trust that your match against Inman will result in a record gate. This would not disturb you, for your nerves are so good that the bigger the crowd the better you seem to play. When first you began playing in England and made four-figure breaks against professionals who were not in the first flight, there were those who stated that it was all very well your making these breaks against these professionals, but you would not make them when opposed to our best players. You effectually silenced them when you played Diggle—to-day almost our best player, judging from the result of his month's game with Stevenson. My best wish is that you may beat your own record when playing Inman and that, as with your 2,196, your new record may be unfinished.
Riso Levi.