A singular misapprehension of the rule relating to the limitation of misses was displayed by Frank Ferraro in the course of his recent match of 12,000 up, on level terms, with H. W. Stevenson, in Johannesburg, and temporarily stopped the match. The circumstances were as follow:—(1) Stevenson gave a miss; (2) Ferraro doubled Stevenson's ball back across the table into baulk; (3), Stevenson attempted a three-cushion cannon off the white, hitting his opponent's ball, but leaving the red undisturbed; (4) Ferraro ran a coup; (5) Stevenson gave a miss in baulk. From the position thus set up, viz., Ferraro in hand, Stevenson's ball in baulk, and the red lying against the right-hand side cushion, Stevenson quite correctly contended that Ferraro must then hit the red, or incur the penalty for contravening Rule 12. Ferraro, on the other hand, claimed that Stevenson had already contravened this rule with his last miss, and that he was entitled to have the balls spotted.
The question being submitted to Mr. B. de R. Malraison on the following day, he, of course, upheld the correctness of Stevenson's interpretation of the rule, and the match was accordingly resumed that afternoon.
It is surprising that a player of Ferraro's experience should have been so obviously at fault over such a simple matter, but it seems probable that, overlooking the definition of a miss contained in Rule 4 (l) ("a miss is a stroke where the striker's ball fails to touch any other ball"), he wrongly concluded that Stevenson's unsuccessful attempt at a cannon constituted a miss.