The Isle of Man Billiards and Snooker Association was represented by two players at the inaugural Commonwealth Billiards Championships recently.

The competition in Mauritius, which covered a variety of cue sport disciplines including Heyball, nine-ball and Carom, saw Darryl Hill and Dollin Mercer travel to the East African island to take part in the six-red snooker event.

Mercer’s match was to kick-off the snooker tournament where he played Lim Kok Leong of Malaysia. Leong was the 2022 IBSF world amateur champion, so this was no easy task.

The format was very short for the 16 players entered: best of five frames and a straight knockout.

Mercer broke off in frame one and unbelievably Leong replied with a maximum break of six reds in a 75 clearance.

But thereafter the Manx player acquitted himself very well, potting some pressure balls to take a small lead into the colours in frame two and was also in contention until a 31 clearance from Leong in frame three.

It proved to be the end of the journey for Mercer as he went out 3-0, but he very much enjoyed it, mentioning it was the fastest table he had ever played on.

Hill was up against fellow ex-professional Craig MacGillivray from Scotland. A 56 break from the Scot put him one up, but Hill pinched frame two and, after needing a snooker on the brown, he also took frame three.

The Isle of Man player then completed a 3-1 win courtesy of a table-length doubled black.

Next up for Hill was 1994 world professional semi-finalist Darren Morgan in the quarter-finals.

Morgan still plays to a very high standard and pinched the first frame with a brilliant counter clearance of 41 and that set the tone, the Welshman going on to win 3-0.

Morgan then went on to lose in the semi-finals to eventual winner, another ex-pro, Michael Georgiou.

MIKE CROOK