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.
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
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