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Canterbury A Grade Snooker Championship |
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Canterbury A Grade Snooker Championship
Held over the weekend, a small but quality field of 14 contested the 73rd Canterbury Snooker Championship at the home of snooker at Cuthberts Green.
Section play was completed on Saturday with defending champion Gary Gillard dropping just the 1 frame to be top qualifier. Mark Canovan, 5 time champion, also qualified despite losing a match to Elima Pernali. Others to qualify for the knock out stage of the tournament were Les Winter, Bill Earle, John Gower, Graham Nobbs, Kelly Pritchard and Elima Pernali. Highest break of the day was 54 by Mark Canovan.
Sunday saw the Plate event for the non qualifiers kick off with Dylan Englebretson winning the final in a hard fought match over George Robertson 3-2 on the black ball.
The main event saw Nobbs win the first frame over Gillard before Gillard got into gear winning the next 3 frames and raising the bar in the high break stakes with a well compiled 67 clearance.
Pritchard accounted for Pernali 3-0, Winter prevailed in a close match winning 3-2 over John Gower and Canovan beat Earle 3-0.
The semi finals were over almost before they started with Canovan beating Winter 3-0 and Gillard prevailed over Pritchard also 3-0. Both matches lasted just 45 minutes.
At one stage it looked liked Gillard had a chance at a maximum break (147), potting the first 10 reds with 10 blacks before missing a tricky 11th red. Thus he again raised the high break to 80. This was the eventual tournament high break.
In the final it looked like Gillard was still thinking about the missed 11th red as Canovan completely dominated the first 3 frames in the best of 7 frame final. Canovan posted a 56 break and two 40 breaks in the process. Gillard clawed one back but Canovan again got into top gear winning the 5th and what proved to be the last frame of the match and tournament.
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