Australian wins minor snooker title

AUSTRALIAN Gareth Welsby won the 2010 BSP B Grade minor national PNG men’s snooker titles last Sunday.
He defeated Arana Taviri 4-3 in the best of seven frames final at the Car Club.
Taviri had his chance to win when he held a comfortable 3-0 lead and needed only one more frame to wrap up the title but Welsby had other ideas.
Taviri won the first frame 57-38, the second with a great comeback 53-51 and the third with a 59-26 scoreline.
Welsby fought back with a one point 38-37 win in the fourth frame, 52-40 in the fifth, 58-37 in the sixth and the seventh went down to the wire with Welsby sinking the black to win 45-35 and his first B Grade national title.
Welsby’s defeated Alotau debutant Lawrence Tukayo 3-1 in the semi-finals earlier in the day.
He had about four hours sleep on Sunday morning after his quarter-finals 3-2 win over Victor Pomaleu ended at 3.30am.
He defeated fellow PNGBSA official Roger Wilson 2-0 in the top 16.
Taviri beat Kia Joseph 3-0 in the semi-finals, Frank Garia 3-0 and Ronny Ramesh 2-0 in the top 16.
Bobby Chan won the inaugural Plate when he defeated Rea Peter. Young Yuri Fong from Kavieng scored the highest break of 27 over the weekend.
Meanwhile, the BSP A Grade major national titles cued off yesterday at the Aviat, Car and Port Moresby Country clubs.
PNGBSA vice-president and tournament director Wilson said 40 players had been pooled in eight groups of five.
“The round robins started this morning (yesterday) and will continue tomorrow (today),” Wilson said.
He said the final 24 should also be completed this evening with the top16 and quarter finals tomorrow.
“If all is on schedule, we should have the semi-finals played tomorrow evening starting at 6.30pm with the final on Sunday at 1pm,” he said.
The final will be played at the Port Moresby Country club followed by the presentation for both Grades on Sunday.
“It was an exciting weekend of snooker last weekend in B Grade and that should continue this weekend,” he added.
On a sad note, Wilson expressed his sincere condolences to the wife, children and family of late Idau Miria on his tragic passing.
“Idau or Kundi as we all knew him in the snooker family was a very renowned snooker player and on behalf of the president Peter Fong, the executives, sponsors, players and their families, I express our sincere condolences to his wife, children and families,” Wilson said.