Australian Billiards & Snooker Council

News

Bolton Takes Oceania Billiards
22 Apr 2006

Matthew Bolton has won the Oceania Billiards Championship for the second year in a row, defeating Danik Lucas 2573-1547 at the Onehunga Workingmen’s Club in Auckland NZ. Matthew also made the highest break for the tournament with 389 in his final game of the round robin section.

There was a slow start to the six hour final, until Danik Lucas opened the account with a break of 215 at the end of the first hour. This sparked Bolton into action, and he immediately replied with consecutive breaks of 146, 73 and 69 to turn a 250 point deficit into just two points. He then took control of the match with a well controlled break of 331 and went to the session break with a lead of 306.

Returning to the second session on an unfinished break of 14 and perfect top of the table position, Bolton converted it into 232 to really put the game out of reach unless Lucas could produce something special. However, this did not materialise, and with further breaks of 132 and 109 Bolton finished the second session with the scores at 1686-742 and a lead of 956.

A normal player may have gone down with a whimper, but with pride on the line Danik Lucas refused to throw in the towel. The final session produced some of the highest standard billiards seen in the world. Trading break for break, Bolton opened with 89, Lucas replied with 189. Bolton hit back with 197, Lucas replied with 169. The sequence continued – Bolton 290, Lucas 146, Bolton 166, Lucas 162 unfinished at the bell. The score for the final session was 887-806 – just under 1700 points were scored in the two hour session.

With players of this calibre, Australian billiards is looking strong. A lack of tournaments and the distance between Bolton from Perth and Lucas from Brisbane has meant that we are yet to see what each may be truly capable of – if we can get them together more often we will see them both thrive under the competition.

The full list of breaks made in the final is as follows:
Matthew Bolton – 78, 146, 73, 69, 331, 232, 53, 132, 109, 55, 89, 89, 197, 290, 166
Danik Lucas – 61, 42, 215, 48, 189, 169, 146, 162unf