Focus on small Snooker-countries - Part 7: East Europe

Aloha! another issue of my 'Focus on small Snooker-countries' awaits you. This time I offer a little insight to countries in Eastern Europe. Comments/Opinions/Retweets appreciated (as always).

Czech Republic

The World series of snooker visited Prague in october 2009 with four local players competing against the pros. Lukáš Křenek was able to steal John Higgins a frame, but the other players were whitewashed. It turned out to be the last WSoS event, followed by the news-of-the-world-scandal and a lifelong ban on Pat Mooney and a six month ban for Higgins - I guess you remember.

But snooker professional came back to Czech a year later with the PTC event number 12. Jakub Rendla was lucky enough to go to the L64 round by recieving a bye against Ronnie, who missed the tournament.

So all in all: as much as I like the country (i was there twice for holidays and its really beautiful): in aspects of snooker its a developing country. I'm not sure if this list is still valid, but according to it, there are nine venues where you can play snooker in the whole country, while a century break in competition is still to come. Wang Sishuo (who played at the WSoS event too) came closest with a 91. I think its fair to say that we probably wont see the first Czech pro player in near future.

Poland

Polish snooker is a huge step further, with Kacper Filipiak competing as the first player from Poland at the pro tour at the moment - although I have to add that he won none of his 15 matches so far. But he is such a young player (born 1995), that he is a guy to look at for the future - especially when you saw his performance at the World Cup, where he won his 1-frame-games against Higgins, Maguire and Fu. Recently he played his first century at the tour, with now only 768 remaining to equal Stephen Hendry ;)

Michal Zielinski (19 years old) played a few PTCs as an amateur and was able to beat a few Englishmen in the prequalifications, but never progressed further than L128. He also played at the WSoS final in Portugal 2009, where he stole Ryan Day a frame.

A Polish team, consisting of Krzysztof Wróbel, Rafał Górecki and Marcin Nitschke finished second in the 2011 European Team Championship. In the final they were beaten by a Welsh team (Walker/Wells/Krysa).

Ukraine

Watch out for Vladyslav Vyshnevskyy! Maybe his name contains much to much 'y's, but for a 13 year old guy, he already showed his talent by wining a pre-qual. match at PTC6 2012 and stealing a frame from Andrew Pagett in the L128. He also survived the group stages of the recent U21-European Championship in Sofia. If he continues to focus on snooker he may have a pro career awaiting him in five years or ten.

Two more players I can mention here are Sergiy Isayenko, who finished L32 at the 2010 European Championship and the 52-year old Alan Trigg who finished second at the EBSA Seniors Masters 2011.

up next: dont know yet.

Focus on small Snooker-countries - Part 6: New Zealand & Brazil

Alright, here we are again with another series of my blog, which features a collection of the most successful players of the various countries, this time introducing you to New Zealand and Brazil. 

New Zealand

We start in the deep past with Clark McConachy: He was the first non-english player, who reached a world championship final. It was 1932, when he challanged Joe Davis, but as all players of this era, he lost. He made it to another final in 1952, when he lost to Horace Lindrum (some more details: see last blog). Like most players of the pre-modern era he was a very successful english billards player too. He is the only cueist from New Zealand in NZ's sports hall of fame.

Dene O'Kane became a professional in 1984 is so far the only who made it to the crucible theatre (six times) and even reached the quarterfinals there twice (1987 and 1992). He has a career high ranking of 18 and made more than 400k pound price money. 

In 1989 he reached the final of the Hong Kong open, a ranking event, which took place only once. He lost there against Mike Hallett and fell off the top32 in 1996/97 and left the main tour in 2000/01, but requalified for a single season in 2006/07 via the oceanian championships. Recently he participated at the world seniors 2011 and beat Neal Foulds in the first round, before losing to Steve Davis in the quarters.

Chris McBreen is another former main tour player from NZ, who lives in Germany nowadays. He competed in the 2001/02 season with the pros, but won only a single game the whole season. He came back for the 2008/09 season, by finishing second in the Oceanian champs (winner Glen Wilkinson refused the main tour ticket) but again just won one single game. Since then he is back at amateurstatus and played a couple of PTCs, but without any surprise wins against famous players. 

The reigning national champion (2011) is Bayden Jackson.

Brazil

Brazil went to the public focus after the Brazil Masters was established this season as a main-tour-invitation-tournament. 

In contrast to New Zealand a history of international successful players is non-existent, but with Igor Figueiredo a very promising young player was invited to the tour in 2010/11 by a WPBSA-wildcard. His debut season was phenomenal if you consider, that he just played on smaller 10-foot-tables in his youth. (I read that somewhere, dont know if its true for 100% to be honest, but it really impressed me.) 

He requalified for another season via PTC-order of merit. His best results were Last64 appearances at the World Open and Shanghai Masters and a run to the last 16 at PTC3. Sadly he had problems finding a sponsor and just counldnt afford a second pro-season, but when he was invited to the already mentioned Brazil Masters he showed his class and beat Jamie Cope in his opeining match, before losing to the later finalist Graeme Dott.

He also participated in the 2008 10-ball pool world championship but didnt survived the group stages. There were some difficulties with the Brazilian snooker association, which caused him missing the World Cup in Thailand, although he was invited by the WPBSA.

Fabio Luersen and Noel Rodrigues played instead for Brazil, finishing last in the group stages but at least made a narrow victory against Belgium. Another notable player from Brazil is Itaro Santos, but he plays now for Germany and is mentioned in part 1 of this blog, where I focused on German players.

Hope u enjoyed, comments and retweets appreciated of course. ;)

Next episode: Eastern Europe

Focus on small Snooker-countries - Part 5: Australia

Again, it took a while for me to write another part of my "focus on small snooker-countries"-series. This time I'll focus on Australia.

Wait what? Australia? small? Well... you might argue, that Neil Robertson was world champion and world number one, and I cant prove you wrong. But... besides him...? See, thats the reason I includeded Australia, but I'll leave out Robertson, as he is famous enough to inform about him elsewhere, just like I did with Marco Fu and Hong Kong here.

Australia

When we take a look deep into history, the first famous Australian name you'll find is Horace Lindrum. He was a finalist in the world championships three times (1936, 1937 and 1946) but lost all of them against the unbeaten champion Joe Davis. You have to keep in mind, that the World championship wasnt anything like today, as it had just a few participants and snooker was not really a competitive sport like today.

When in 1952 the Billiards Association and Control Council and the Players Association made two different World championships, Lindrum won the BA&CC-version (as one of only two participants), so he is even included in some lists of world champions, although the legitimacy of this event as a world championship is disputed. 

It is said, that he made more than 1000 centuries in public events, although records from this era shouldnt be viewed too credulously.

After him, Eddie Charlton was the next Australian to reach a final of a world championship. When the WCs were played in challange-events (comparable to chess or boxing) he challanged John Pulman, but lost 39:34.

He made it into two more WC finals in 1973 and 1975 (in Melbourne!), when the event was already played as a tournament, but before it went to Sheffield. He lost both matches to welshman Ray Reardon. In 1972, 1973 and 1980 he won the Pot Black Cup, the World Matchplay 1976 and he was a world championship finalist in English Billards too. 

Another one who made it to a world championship final is Warren Simpson. He played in 1971 in Sydney against John Spencer, but lost 37:29. I couldnt find out much more about him, except that wikipedia says he died in 1980 suffering from diabetes.

Warren King is a notable player, who reached the final of the Classic in 1990 and qualified for the world championship four times. (career high rank: 35)

Glen Wilkinson is another veteran player, who played at the professional circut at the begin of the 90s. He meanwhile returned to Australia and won a couple of national and continental championships.

Well, we slowly come closer to present, and our next player is Quinten Hann, who was a pretty successful player, reaching the halffinals in the Irish Masters 2004 and being a top-16-player for two season. Moreover he earned more than 400k pound in his professional career. Unfortunately he always was kind of an enfant terrible. He was brought to court for raping but was acquitted. After losing a game to Andy Hicks he challanged him for a boxing fight. Mark King accepted on Hicks' place and both got proper boxing licences. Hann won. 

His star finally sunk, when he was accused of betting manipulation in 2005 by journalists of the gutter paper "The Sun". Hann finally recieved an eight year ban from professional snooker in 2006. 

Johl Younger played two years on the main tour (2002/03 and 2003/04) making it to the Last 64 in the World Championships as well as the British Open as his best career results.

Another player of format is Steve Mifsud, who won the IBSF amateur championship 2002. He was a main tour player in 2003/04 and 2007/08 but wasnt very successful. The probably best known player he was able to beat was Liang Wenbo, before his breakthrough. He played as Robertsons double partner at the 2011 World Cup and gained a wildcard for the Australian Goldfield Masters Event 2011, just like his brother James Mifsud (both lost their opening matches though). 

Since 2006 Vinnie Calabrese regulary plays at the main-tour-qualification events (PIOS/Q-School) and maybe we'll see him as the second Australian main tour player soon. 

Thanks for reading and plug in for the next episode - I'll take New Zealand and Brazil in Part six.