"Hi-Five" For Wilkinson

NSW’s Glen Wilkinson has successfully defended his Australian Masters Snooker title and also continued a remarkable run of success in this particular event, with victory in the 2014 Championship now extending his Australian Masters titles to 5 in just the 9 year history of the event. In a repeat of last year’s result, Wilkinson once again proved too solid for fellow NSW player Terry Emmett in an emphatic 5-0 victory. Full results can be accessed on the Australian Billiards & Snooker Council website at www.absc.com.au (tournament results).

As a result of this latest victory, Wilkinson will no doubt be eagerly looking forward to the opportunity of once again representing Australia at the upcoming IBSF World Masters Snooker Championship - which will be staged in Bangalore, India, on 19th – 30th November 2014. Wilkinson is a seasoned campaigner and certainly no stranger to the international stage, where he has already reached the World Masters Final on 3 separate occasions. We wish him well in his efforts to go one step further later this year. 

The 2014 Australian Masters Snooker was held from 1st – 4th May at Mingara Recreation Club and marked the 7th consecutive year this event has been staged at the popular NSW Central Coast venue. A strong field of 40 players took part which included good representation from WA and NSW, as well as entries from Victoria and Tasmania. ABSC officials have previously referred to Mingara as “the home of the Masters” and the consistent level of entries received year after year is a great show of support by the players for both the event and the venue. 

This year’s Championship was extended from 3 days to 4 days to ensure all round robin games would be played over best of 5 frames and was advertised accordingly well in advance. Comments from players involved clearly supported this initiative, total entries received were still in line with previous years and spectator interest was good overall which all contributed to another successful event. 

Highlights included a total of 6 players going through the group round robin stage undefeated; they being Glen Wilkinson, Joe Minici, Paul Thomerson, Steve Jay, Terry Emmett and Timothy Ng. Victorian Thomerson was the only player not to drop a frame through this stage and emerged as the No.1 seed into the knock-out stage, but he was unable to maintain form and ultimately fell 4-2 to Dave Waller in the quarter-final. Minici and Ng subsequently met in a quarter-final and produced arguably one of the games of the weekend. Ng led 2-0 then 3-1 before Minici managed to level at 3-3 but it was Ng who steadied to win the final frame and progress to the semis. Highest break for this year’s Championship was 102, made by Glen Wilkinson in the first frame of the Final.

Many thanks to the referees who officiated throughout the 4 days of the Championship, to Ross Wyard for acting as Tournament Director and to all involved in the presentation of the tables in such fantastic condition. Congratulations to all involved in making this event a success and Mingara looks forward to being able to host its 8th Australian Masters Snooker Championship in 2015. 
 
Gary Knight
Tournament Organiser