Australian Billiards & Snooker Council

News

Neil Robertson World Under 21 Snooker Champion
29 Jul 2003

Neil Robertson has won the IBSF Under 21 World Snooker Championship, defeating Liu Song of China 11-5. This adds to the titles Neil currently holds of Australian Under 21 and Australian Open Snooker Champion.

The win places Robertson in elite company with other former winners on the event: Ronnie O'Sullivan, Peter Ebdon, Ken Doherty, Marco Fu, and Australia's Quinten Hann.

Neil has also been granted a wild card entry onto the Main Tour for 2003-04, joining Quinten Hann, Johl Younger and Steve Mifsud.

Following is the article from the IBSF Website reporting the victory:

Neil Robertson of Australia beat Liu Song of China 11-5, in the Final of the IBSF Under 21 World Snooker Championship, making Australia the holder of both the current IBSF World Snooker titles.

The opening session of the Final, produced snooker of the highest quality with six of the ten frames played producing breaks of over seventy.
The first frame was played with a certain amount of caution, finally going to Robertson 63-39. The Australian then switched to scoring mode as he blasted in breaks of 115, 137 and 88 to take a 4-0 lead.

Song responded by taking frame five to put himself on the score sheet at 4-1 but much to his dismay, Robertson came back to the table and put together another century break of 126, leaving the Chinese player four frames adrift at 5-1.

Having scored a total of only 56 points during the previous five frames, it was a good time for Song to find his rhythm and put together a break of 80, closing the gap to 5-2, but Robertson returned the favour by easily taking frame eight 94-16, regaining his four frame cushion.

This could have been a time to see the Chinese players head drop but not so as the determined Song took the last two frames of the session, helped by a break of 78 in the ninth, to finish at 6-4.

With the best of twenty one frames and eleven still to play, the Final was left wide open but not for long.

Robertson opened the final session with the same determination he had in the first, by putting together a frame winning 65, with Song responding with his own 63 in the twelfth, to keep in touch with the Australian at 7-5. That however was the end of the Chinese players challenge as Robertson comfortably took the next four frames for a well deserved 11-5 result and the 2003 IBSF Under 21 World Snooker title.

FRAME SCORES (Robertson First)

FIRST SESSION:
63-39, 115(115)-0, 141(137)-0, 111(88)-1, 6-64, 126(126)-0, 39-80(80), 94-16, 14-97(78), 34-75
FINAL SESSION:
71(65)-16, 50-69(63), 80-6, 78-6, 56-16, 64-24