2020 Oceania Women’s and U/21 Snooker

Thanks to the New Zealand Association for hosting both these events and a big thank you to the Tauranaga Citizens Club for making their facilities available.

Kimberly Cullen won the women’s defeating Nita Clarkson in the final. This is the first time Kimberly has won the Oceania Women’s Snooker and has earned an opportunity to play in this year’s world championships to be played in Doha later this year.

Out of the three Aussies who attended this year Belinda Dinga, who entered her first championship, progressed through the round robin to play in the knockout stage.

We introduced the 147 format for the eight women who did not qualify for the knockout stage of the tournament and it proved highly successful. There was a great reluctance initially to play in this plate event as the ladies said 21 minutes a frame was not achievable. From the 28 frames played only 3 matches did not finish in the scheduled time, but only the pink and black remained on the table. Well done ladies.

The under 21 snooker was won by Cody Turner who defeated Marc Fridman in the final. It appeared Marc was lacking some hard match play in the final following his good semi final success.

Marc had possibly under performed to his standards in the final as he trailed five nil but in true character he won the sixth frame only to lose the final 6-1. Well done Marc on getting to the final and of course to Cody for taking out the Championship.

Xavier Daw was outstanding in his semi final match against Cody Turner and although missing an easy pink to level at four all could have made it an all Australian final.

Well done to Marc, Xavier, Denzel Nicholson, Jayden Dinga and Harry Mok for the sportsmanship shown to the New Zealand team.

Next year the Oceania Championships will be held at the Commercial Club, Albury. Dates to be announced soon.