Cambridge University Pool Club

Men's Varsity 2009

• College pool
• Uni pool
• Varsity
• Information
• Places to Play
• Forum

2009 Men's Varsity

Cambridge 45 - 45 Oxford

Report by Rob Hogan

Over the weekend of 2nd/3rd May, Oxford came to Cambridge Snooker Centre to try to regain a Varsity title they last won in 2005. Only a titanic effort from the light blues had allowed us to snatch a win from Oxford last year and we went into this match expecting a close contest - we were right.

Saturday Singles

The score swung back and forth during the opening round of singles with both sides recording a number of 3-0 results. In the tie of the round even Cambridge's star player Rob Cork, competing in his seventh Varsity, couldn't contain his England students' team-mate - a rampant Adam Brown who punished Rob's few mistakes for a 3-0 win. For Cambridge though, Nicolas Nouvel (with a nerveless break and dish), Tom Stephens and Lorry Carr all made exceptional varsity debuts, not dropping a frame in their first round and helping Cambridge pull away and take a vital four frame advantage into the doubles.

Saturday Doubles

Doubles has always been an inexplicable weakness for the light blues - despite sharing the last six varsity matches we have only won the doubles round once. This year a strategy of pairing players with matching rather than complementary styles had limited success.

After I quickly recorded the first frame with a dish off Oxford's break I proceeded to butcher good opportunities in the next two and lost 2-1. Unfortunately other pairs fared similarly and at one point we were 7-1 down in the round - our four frame lead slipping to a two frame deficit. Credit though to a marathon effort from Doug and Luke whose opponents visibly aged as the Cambridge pair drew the only victory of the round. In the final frame of that match Doug showed he had flair equal to his patience by turning down a straight black in favour of playing it to the middle off two cushions.

Good damage limitation from other pairs too meant that we shared the last ten frames of the round which finished a disappointing but not disastrous 12-6 in Oxford's favour.

Sunday Singles

We were in a confident mood going into Sunday knowing that with all doubles behind us we trailed only by the slimmest margin of two frames. The day started promisingly as debutant Ali Argo recorded a 3-0 win over Oxford's captain Rob Gaunt, Luke punished nervy misses from the experienced Lei 'Ray' Xiao and Tom also took his second singles win to bring us back to parity after the first four matches. A further surge took us to a five frame advantage at one point but with the likes of Brown, Harrison, and an impressive Nikki Hoskins to come we knew there was work still to do. A spectacular all-or-nothing long red from Lorry was matched by a doubled black to corner from Oxford's Ben and we crept closer to the winning line while failing to extend the lead.

In the last four matches Doug battled hard but Begg picked him off and as Rob Cork powered to a 2-0 lead over Mark Harrison, Graham had lost two frames to Nikki leaving the match finely balanced. A fantastic display of odds-defying pocket covering from Tim made him the first to deny Adam Brown a singles frame and took us to 43, but an unlucky in-off from Cork allowed Harrison to snatch the last frame of their match. Despite another valiant effort from Tim, Adam eventually potted the black to take the match to 44-44 with two to play. After much battling, Graham gained the upper hand in a tense final frame with Nikki and potted a tricky black to reach the 45 frame milestone to the delight of Cambridge crowd. Meanwhile Adam was making light work of a chance with balls in open play and seconds later took the final frame of Varsity to tie it, 45 frames each.

To the best of our knowledge this was the first time Varsity had been tied and both teams were unsure how to react. We discussed playing another short singles round but in the end decided that if the two teams couldn't be separated over the usual format then it was sporting to shake hands in recognition of two well matched sides and leave it there.

Given the result it'd be easy to look back and regret mistakes and missed opportunities that might've cost us, but I think such an inexperienced Cambridge side can be proud of their performance, dominating the singles to deny Oxford a victory they sorely wanted. The light blues remain undefeated and we look forward to taking the fight to Oxford next year.

Singles contest

Results

© 2006-2013 CUPC
This site was designed by Rob Cork and Rob Hogan, and is maintained by Jeremi Miller on behalf of Cambridge University Pool Club.
Please report any errors, broken links etc. to Jeremi (email jrm224).