Ali Gangi Wins NSW 2013 Minor Grade Snooker
/Kingsgrove RSL player Ali Gangi has won the 2013 NSW Minor Grade Snooker championship held at Toukley RSL.
Over 40 players travelled to Toukley to compete in this year’s minor grade championships. Once again these championships attracted a very strong field with many favourites for the title. The last 16 saw two of these favourites suffer defeat as both Luke Hough and Rob Elsley lost their matches on a deciding frame to Danny Townsend and Ali Gangi respectively.
The quarter final matches saw some very close tussles as 3 of the 4 matches went to a deciding frame. These were Michael Cosh defeating Patrick Yeung, Ali Gangi Defeating Ying Jin and Todd Hayward defeating Danny Townsend. In the other Quarter final match Grant Meadley had a comfortable win over Col Tharratt 3-1 to set up a semi final match with Michael Cosh.
The first semi final saw Port Macquarie’s Michael Cosh make light work of Grant Meadley who was clearly showing the effects of being both tournament director and a player and had nothing left in the tank. Michael fired early in this match and looked like the person to beat in this event having a great season to date producing consistent results in all tournaments he contests. Michael advanced to the Final with a 3 nil win. Michael was also a finalist in 2011.
In the other Semi Final minor grade veteran Todd Hayward was playing fantastic snooker and would face Ali Gangi who in his previous 2 matches had won in the deciding frame. This gam would prove no different as these players went frame for frame and forced yet another decider for Ali. In what was a tight 5th frame Ali held his nerves well and cleared the colours for the win and to advance to his first Minor Grade final.
Due to time both Michael and Ali decided to make the final a best of 5 rather than the traditional 7.
Both players were showing signs of fatigue and it was Ali Gangi who had just that bit more left in the tank knocking in a 61 break to finish the match and winning 3 0.
On behalf of BSANSW thank you to Toukley RSL and members for the use of your tables and your
continued support of Snooker. This year was the first of a 3 year $6000 partnership between
BSANSW and Club Toukley.
Grant Meadley
Tournament Director
