Busy programme for Meredith

Press, 21 June 1985, Page 23

Busy programme for Meredith

The Canterbury billiards championship, which begins tomorrow and ends with the final over two sessions next Thursday and Friday nights, will be doubly important this year to the province’s and the country’s top player, Dave Meredith. It will be Meredith’s last billiards tournament before he leaves next month for the world amateur championship in New Delhi and he is hoping that a week of concentrated match play will help his preparation.

He is also keen to recapture a title which he lost for the first time since 1980 last year. He was narrowly beaten in a semi-final by Brian Kirkness, who went on to beat Ken Giles, in the final. Meredith will contest the Canterbury snooker championship, which he has. won five times in the last seven years, shortly before he goes overseas, but because he has concentrated so much on billiards this winter he does not rate his chances in this event highly. “I wouldn’t have played more than half a dozen snooker frames all year,” said Meredith this week. However, he is quite happy

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with his billiards form and is confident that he can improve on his two previous placings at the world event. Because of the trip to New Delhi, he picked up his one cue earlier than usual this year. He began practising in March, and at Easter won a big Masters tournament at Pukekohe, making seven century breaks in his nine games. Two weeks ago he retained his South Island title (for the sixth successive year) at Oamaru and there were four century breaks there, with a top of 197. Although he has twice been beaten, by Kirkness and Sid Baker, in inter-club matches, Meredith feels that he has been playing quite well in these short-time games and four century breaks support this view. Recently he made a 365 in practice, and while Meredith is quick to acknowledge that big practice breaks are valuable only in building confidence, the break did help him gauge his form. “I have been getting more double centuries this year and to get into the 300 s was encouraging. It is largely a

KEVIN McMENAMIN

matter of being able to extend your concentration span.” Meredith is optimistic that he can win four or five of his section games in New Delhi, although he realises that he has little chance of beating the top Indian players. “The last time I played Michael Ferreira (the world’s top amateur) he beat me by about 1000 over four hours. If I could, cut this to 500 or 600 I would be quite pleased, and it is largely a case of being able to turn century breaks into double centuries,” said Meredith. The tournament starting tomorrow begins an intensive three months of billiards and snooker for Meredith. • He will return from India on August 9, just in time for the Canterbury open billiards and snooker events. Then comes the national tournament, which is to be held in Christchurch. At the nationals, Meredith will be trying to Win the billiards title for the sixth straight year and nothing

would please him more than to take the billiardsrsnooker double.

He has been a New Zealand snooker champion, but never in the same year in which he has won the billiards. And despite having had greater success in billiards, snooker is still the game that he prefers.

It will be a surprise if Meredith, who is aged 36, does not regain the Canterbury title next week. Kirkness and Giles are the only rivals he should have to vorry too much about, and these three, along with either Peter de Groot or Doug Hallum, both of whom have been scoring well in inter-club matches, are the likely semi-finalists.

Recently Meredith ran in the City of Christchurch marathon and his time of 2hr 42min was his best in the four times that he has covered the 42km distance.

Re is hopeful that 1985 will bring a rise in his billiards breaks to go with a lowering of his marathon times. It would be a happy juxtaposition for a man who works very hard at both activities.