Ng wins third title

By JACK AMI
PAPUA New Guinea snooker number one seed Marcus Ng retained the BSP National men’s title for the third successive year with a 5 frames to 1 victory over Roger Ng at the Q Club on Sunday.
Ng claimed the men’s champion’s cup and K4000 on Independence Day while in the women’s champion Geua John was presented the women’s cup as well as K2500.
Ng won the first three frames 71-8, 65-30 and 73-18 before Roger Ng came back to win the fourth frame 6-49.
The defending champion then resumed control winning the next two frames 60-49 and 64-15 to win the best-of-nine frame final
Ng’s form over the group stage and through the playoffs was such that he only lost two frames – one to veteran Ng in the final and the other to youngster Vare Vaieke in the group stage.
Roger Ng, a former champion (2004), made an auspicious return to the table, topping his group (E) and surprising the field with his ability to score quickly and maintain his form.
Marcus Ng, for his part was in cruise mode, not having to deal with any kind of pressure through the group stage aside from dropping that frame against Vaieke.
The defending champion surged into the last 16 beating Fred Ramos 3-0 and then dispatched Miria Rima by the same score in the quarterfinal before going through Poliap Pokanau 4-0 in the semifinal on Saturday.
Pokanau said he had promised to buy himself an Independence Day present if he beat Ng in their semifinal because he knew beating the defending champion would be an achievement on its own.
Roger Ng showed great form himself beating Noel Ramos 4-0 in their semifinal and was hoping to catch Marcus off his guard in Sunday afternoon’s final at the Lamana Hotel but had no such luck although he did manage to win a frame against the champion.
Marcus Ng told The National that he relaxed a little after jumping out to a three-frame lead in the final but may have underestimated Roger, who took his chance by claiming the fourth 60-49.
“I had to refocus and make those big shots to get back into the game and it was all over then,” Ng said.
“When I first started in 2014, Roger Ng actually introduced me to snooker trials at Car Club. That year in the snooker titles I played Djorne Fong and lost 5-2 and lost 5-4 in 2015 and then in 2016 I beat Djorne 5-4 and 5-0 to make it back-to-back titles.”