Big billiards test for Meredith

Press, 31 October 1981, Page 22

Big billiards test for Meredith

By

KEVIN McMENAMIN

A few years ago Dave Meredith (left) was seen as New Zealand’s top snooker player, and also a fair hand at billiards. However, now that he has followed three successive national snooker titles with two billiards victories it is hard to say at which branch of the sport he is more proficient. There is no doubt that Meredith has come a long way as a billiards player in the last three years and next week, in the company of another Canterbury man, Ken Giles, he will leave for the world amateur billiards championship in New Delhi. During his reign as national snooker champion, Meredith twice. represented New Zealand at world amateur tournaments. He went to Malta in 1978 and Tasmania in 1980, finishing among the also-rans on both occasions.

He makes no promises about doing any better this time, but as a firm believer in the importance of positive thinking he has set as his goal third or fourth placing in his section.

It is a realistic target, for even at his very best Meredith would be struggling to “live” with two of his rivals, the brilliant Indian, Michael Ferreira, and the outstanding Englishman, Norman Dagley.

Ferreira, who is in the same section as Meredith, won this title in 1977 and he was narrowly beaten by Paul Mifsud (Malta) in the 1979 final. Dalgey is a former world open champion. . Meredith, who will play Ferreria in his second game, has met the Indian on one previous occasion. This was at the world open tournament in Christchurch in 1977 and as Meredith himself recalls, he “spent most of the game watching Ferreira pile

up points.” He did, however, enjoy some revenge when he later beat Ferreira at snooker. Another formidable rival will be the second Englishman, Bob Close, who was the runner-up to Ferreira in 1977. He is Meredith’s first opponent on the second day of the championship, November 13.

Apart from Ferreira, Close and Dagley, who is in the second' section t with Giles, not a great deal is known about most of the other nine players, who represent Sri Lanka, Scotland, Pakistan, Australia and Egypt. However, the Australian No. 1 is George Ganim, jun., whom Meredith beat in 1977,. and he lost a close snooker battle with the sole Maltese representative, Joe Grech, in Tasmania last year. Mifsud is not defending his title and this is apparently because of a dispute between him and the Maltese association. Grech, whom Meredith will meet in his final section game (the top two from each section qualifying for the semi-finals), is obviously a good player. He has a number of 500 competition breaks to his credit Meredith’s best competition break is 260, which he made during the 1977 Christchurch tournament His best ever is a 298, which he made in practice earlier this year. A changed life-style — a steady job, marriage and just recently his wife, Jocelyn, gave birth to their first child — has meant that Meredith, now aged 33, no longer gives the long hours he once did to However, he still

feels that his billiards game is in good shape.

“You don’t have to devote the practice time to billiards that you do to snooker. In snooker, potting is all important and if your potting is astray then you are in trouble. In billiards, there are other shots to fall back on,” he said this week.

Meredith believes that he is a more confident billiards player, and a more relaxed one, than he was a year or two ago. “I understand the game better now and know more shots. Also I have developed a pattern of play which can get me to the top of the table in four or five shots.”

He is well aware of the fact that he is going to run into some class top-of-the-table players in New Delhi and his intention is to try and play them at their own game.

“The top of the table is where the points are and if I am to go down, I would rather go down fighting than by trying to play defensively, and* probably still get swamped.”

As his top-of-the-table play has developed Meredith’s scoring has improved, as it has for other top players who have come to realise that the old hazard scoring methods are outdated. Five hundred used to be a reasonable total for a New Zealander to score in a twohour session, but at least 700 is needed to foot it with the better overseas players and Meredith says that he will be aiming for 600 s and 700 s in New Delhi, with at least two century breaks per session. “If 1 can achieve this, then

I should fare reasonably

well. Most of the others will not do a great deal better and so long as you have the table your opponent, regardless of how good he is, is not scoring,” said Meredith. Ferreira, himself, proved this when in the last session of the 1977 final in Christchurch he barely gave his opponent, the Englishman Markham Wildman, a look in, scoring 1728 points in the two hours at a world record average of 192. If he can recapture this sort of form, Ferreira should win the New Delhi tournament in a canter.

Meredith has lifted his practice time in the last week to around four or five hours a day and while his breaks have been nothing spectacular, he has been getting into the 30s and 40s regularly. “I feel that I am cueing well enough; it’s just a matter now of putting these smaller breaks together,” he said.

Giles, who is the second ranked New Zealander behind Meredith, could find the going tough although he has improved steadily in the last five years, to the point now where 200 breaks are well within his compass. However, on past experiences of New Zealanders playing in India, the biggest battle will be with food and playing conditions. The best news the Christchurch pair have had in recent weeks is that the tournament will be staged in a hotel which has air-condi-tioning, something which another Canterbury player, Brian Kirkness, had to do without when he played there some four years ago. Kirkness found the humidity almost unbearable.