Wellington’s Haenga starts favourite

Press, 12 September 1988, Page 19

Wellington’s Haenga starts favourite

What promises to be an exciting week of top-class snooker will begin today as New Zealand’s top cueists gather at the Richmond Working Men’s Club for the Lion Brown national championship.

The hot favourite to win the title is Wellington’s Harry Haenga, who has been in devastating form all season, winning eight tournaments including the North Island championship.

Haenga, who has scored over 500 century breaks, holds the championship record with the 113 he set at last year's event and recently recorded a 106 break to beat the New Zealand professional, Dene O’Kane, in an exhibition match.

Wellington holds a strong hand for this year’s event with the reigning champion, Steve Robertson, and the inform Jack Lemon and Lewis Otto also representing the province. ■ Strong challenges will also be expected to come from the Aucklanders, Bruce Anderson, who finished runner-up last year, and Barry Moore, who along with Grant Hayward, is reaching peak form. As usual, there will be a strong southern challenge with the four times winner, Dave Meredith, from Canterbury, anxious to improve on his showing in last week’s billiards, as well as the billiards runner-up, Peter de Groot, who was the winner here in 1985 beating Haenga in the final. The South Island championship winner, Roy Young, from Otago, is the youngest player in the field of 48 and another Otago player who will be hard to beat is Dale Kwok who is making a comeback after retiring from top play when he won the title for the second time in 1983.

Section play will begin today and be completed on Thursday morning with the 16 qualifiers contesting the knock-out rounds on Thursday evening and Friday with the best-of-15-frame final played in two sessions on Saturday.