South African Professional Championship

Last updated

South African Professional Championship
Tournament information
Country South Africa
Established1948
FormatNon-ranking event
Final year1989
Final champion Flag of South Africa (1982-1994).svg Perrie Mans

The South African Professional Championship was a professional snooker tournament which was open only for South African players.

Contents

History

South Africa held a professional championship beginning in 1948. As with Australia it was originally held as a challenge match until 1984 (the only exception to this was 1979, when five players competed), [1] when the WPBSA offered a subsidy of £1,000 per man to any country holding a national professional championship. This subsidy ended in 1988/1989 after which date most national championships were discontinued, with Perrie Mans winning the final edition of the tournament.[ citation needed ]

Winners

[2] [3]

YearWinnerRunner-upFinal scoreVenueSeason
Challenge matches
1948–1950 Flag of South Africa (1928-1982).svg Peter Mans various challengesn/a
1950–1965 Flag of South Africa (1928-1982).svg Fred Van Rensburg various challenges
1965–1977 Flag of South Africa (1928-1982).svg Perrie Mans various challenges
1978 Flag of South Africa (1928-1982).svg Perrie Mans Flag of South Africa (1928-1982).svg Silvino Francisco 9–5 1978/79
Knockout tournament
1979 Flag of South Africa (1928-1982).svg Derek Mienie Flag of South Africa (1928-1982).svg Jimmy van Rensberg 9–6 1979/80
Challenge matches
1980–1984 Flag of South Africa (1982-1994).svg Perrie Mans various challengesn/a
Knockout tournaments
1984 Flag of South Africa (1982-1994).svg Jimmy van Rensberg Flag of South Africa (1982-1994).svg Perrie Mans 10–7MOTHS Club, Johannesburg 1984/85
1986 Flag of South Africa (1982-1994).svg Silvino Francisco Flag of South Africa (1982-1994).svg Francois Ellis9–1 Johannesburg 1986/87
1988 Flag of South Africa (1982-1994).svg Francois Ellis Flag of South Africa (1982-1994).svg Jimmy van Rensberg 9–4 Germiston 1987/88
1989 Flag of South Africa (1982-1994).svg Perrie Mans Flag of South Africa (1982-1994).svg Robbie Grace8–5 Johannesburg 1988/89

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Snooker</span> Cue sport

Snooker is a cue sport played on a rectangular billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets: one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in India in the second half of the 19th century, the game is played with 22 balls, comprising a white cue ball, 15 red balls and 6 other balls—a yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black—collectively called 'the colours'. Using a snooker cue, the individual players or teams take turns to strike the cue ball to pot other balls in a predefined sequence, accumulating points for each successful pot and for each foul committed by the opposing player or team. An individual frame of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points, and a snooker match ends when a player wins a predetermined number of frames.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Snooker Championship</span> Annual professional snooker ranking tournament

The World Snooker Championship is the longest-running and most prestigious tournament in professional snooker. It is also the richest, with total prize money of £2,395,000 in 2023, including £500,000 for the winner. First held in 1927, it is now one of the three tournaments that make up snooker's Triple Crown Series. The reigning world champion is Kyren Wilson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ray Reardon</span> Welsh professional snooker player (1932–2024)

Raymond Reardon was a Welsh professional snooker player who dominated the sport in the 1970s, winning the World Snooker Championship six times and claiming more than a dozen other professional titles. Due to his dark widow's peak and prominent eye teeth, he was nicknamed "Dracula".

Pierre "Perrie" Mans was a South African professional snooker player. He first won the South African Professional Championship in 1965 and lifted the title 20 times. Mans won the Benson & Hedges Masters in 1979 and reached the final of the World Championship in 1978.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doug Mountjoy</span> Welsh snooker player (1942–2021)

Douglas Mountjoy was a Welsh snooker player from Tir-y-Berth, Gelligaer, Wales. He was a member of the professional snooker circuit from the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, and remained within the top 16 of the world rankings for 11 consecutive years. He began his professional snooker career by taking the 1977 Masters, which he entered as a reserve player. He won both the 1978 UK Championship and the 1979 Irish Masters. Mountjoy reached the final of the 1981 World Snooker Championship where he was defeated by Steve Davis. He was also runner-up at the 1985 Masters losing to Cliff Thorburn, but by 1988 he had dropped out of the top 16.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UK Championship</span> Snooker tournament

The UK Championship is a professional ranking snooker tournament. It is one of snooker's prestigious Triple Crown events, along with the World Championship and the Masters. It is usually held at the Barbican, York. Ronnie O'Sullivan has won the tournament a record eight times, followed by Steve Davis with six titles and Stephen Hendry with five.

The Welsh Open is a professional ranking snooker tournament that has been held annually since 1992. It replaced the Welsh Professional Championship, which ran annually from 1980 to 1991 and was open only to Welsh players. The Welsh Open is now the longest running ranking event after the World Championship and the UK Championship. Since the 2016–17 season, it has been one of four tournaments in the Home Nations Series, alongside the Northern Ireland Open, the Scottish Open, and the English Open. Since 2017, the winner of the event has received the Ray Reardon Trophy, named after the Welsh six-time world champion. Reardon himself presented the newly named trophy to 2017 winner Stuart Bingham.

Desmond Rex Williams is an English retired professional billiards and snooker player. He was the second player to make an official maximum break in snooker, achieving this in an exhibition match in December 1965. Williams won the World Professional Billiards Championship from Clark McConachy in 1968, the first time that the title had been contested since 1951. Williams retained the title in several challenge matches in the 1970s and, after losing it to Fred Davis in 1980, regained it from 1982 to 1983.

Kirk Stevens is a Canadian former professional snooker player.

Since 1927 the World Snooker Championship had been played as a single-elimination tournament, but between 1964 and 1968, it was defended over seven challenge matches. Following a hiatus after the 1957 World Professional Match-play Championship, the event was revived by Rex Williams on a challenge basis, with the champion being opposed by prominent players. This began in 1964, organised by the Billiards Association and Control Council. The 1957 champion John Pulman contested and won all seven challenge matches against various opponents in the next five years, until the tournament reverted to a knock-out format in 1969.

The 1979 UK Championship was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 19 November and 1 December 1979 at the Guild Hall in Preston, England. This was the third edition of the UK Championship that would later become part of snooker's Triple Crown. The event was sponsored by Coral for the second year in a row.

The 1979 Masters was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place from Monday 22nd to Friday 26 January 1979 at the Wembley Conference Centre in London, England, which would host the tournament until the venue's demolition in 2006. 10 players were invited for the tournament.

The Irish Professional Championship was an invitational professional snooker tournament for mostly Irish and Northern Irish snooker players.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Snooker Tour</span> Series of snooker tournaments

The World Snooker Tour (WST) is the main professional snooker tour, consisting of about 128 players competing on a circuit of up to 28 tournaments each season. The World Snooker Tour is administered by World Snooker Ltd, the commercial arm of professional snooker, which introduced the World Snooker Tour name, logo, and revised website as part of a 2020 rebranding. The principal stakeholder in World Snooker Ltd is Matchroom Sport, which owns 51 percent of the company; the sport's governing body, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), owns 26 percent. To compete on the World Snooker Tour, players must be WPBSA members.

The 1978–79 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between August 1978 and June 1979. The following table outlines the results for the ranking and the invitational events.

The World Professional Match-play Championship was a professional snooker tournament established in 1952 as an alternative to the professional World Snooker Championship by some of the professional players, following a dispute with the Billiards Association and Control Council, the sport's governing body. Fred Davis won the first five editions of the tournament, but didn't participate in 1957, when John Pulman won. After this, the event was discontinued due to a decline in the popularity of snooker.

The Canadian Professional Championship was a professional snooker tournament which was open only for Canadian players.

The Australian Professional Snooker Championship was a professional snooker tournament which was open only for Australian or Australian-based players.

The 1979 South African Professional Championship was a non-ranking snooker tournament, which took place in August 1979. The tournament featured five exclusively South African players - Derek Mienie, Jimmy van Rensberg, Mannie Francisco, Peter Francisco and the incumbent champion, Perrie Mans.

The 1986 South African Professional Championship was a non-ranking snooker tournament, which took place in August 1986 at the Summit Club, Johannesburg. The tournament featured eleven South African players.

References

  1. "1979 South African Professional Championship Results". Snooker Database. Archived from the original on 22 December 2017. Retrieved 20 December 2017.
  2. "South African Professional Championship". Chris Turner's Snooker Archive. Archived from the original on 7 January 2012. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  3. "New South African Champion". Snooker Scene. January 1985. p. 32.