Port Elizabeth snooker star Charl Jonck made up for his disappointment in the national singles championship by winning the SPAR South African 6 Reds title in Port Elizabeth this week.<\/p>\n
Jonck produced a maximum break of 75 in the final to defeat Cape Town’s Tariq Samsodien 7-1 at the Hellenic Hall on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
It was the second setback of the week for former SA singles champion Samsodien, who lost to Goodwood clubmate Mutalieb Allie in the singles final on Saturday.<\/p>\n
For Jonck, however, there was some compensation after he had lost in the quarterfinals of the singles competition.<\/p>\n
The 6 Reds can be likened to cricket’s Twenty20 format, where the game is shorter and there is more pressure on the players.<\/p>\n
Whereas snooker is played with 15 red balls, the 6 Reds format is played with six red balls and six colour balls. The SPAR national event at the Hellenic Hall had a field of 34 players.<\/p>\n
Jonck was delighted. To be crowned national champion made up for the disappointment of missing out in the singles event, he said.<\/p>\n
“I feel I actually ended the tournament by playing my best snooker. It may have been better to have the 6 Reds championship first and then go into the singles tournament.”<\/p>\n
Jonck has won numerous snooker titles, including the Eastern Province 6 Reds championship, but this was his first national title in the shortened format.<\/p>\n
As an established player, he was able to adapt comfortably to the strategy required for 6 Reds.<\/p>\n
“But obviously, as there are fewer balls on the table, you just have to be a little more careful in the way you approach each game.<\/p>\n
“There was good competition in the 6 Reds, with some top players in the field, but I felt comfortable throughout. My closest game was a 5-2 win.”<\/p>\n
Although he was happy that the tournament was held in Port Elizabeth, Jonck said there were pros and cons.<\/p>\n
“For example, you got to sleep in your own bed at night, but at six the next morning I was at my job, doing some work before going to play,” he said.<\/p>\n
SPAR Eastern Cape sponsorship and events manager Alan Stapleton said they were delighted to support the tournament.<\/p>\n
“From a SPAR perspective, we do like to things differently, so to be involved with the SPAR South African snooker championships has been an enlightening and interesting experience,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It has been lovely to see the passion and tight family-like camaraderie in the snooker fraternity.”<\/p>\n
Port Elizabeth will play host to the championships again next year as the tournaments are allocated to a venue on a two-year basis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Port Elizabeth snooker star Charl Jonck made up for his disappointment in the national singles championship by winning the SPAR South African 6 Reds title in Port Elizabeth this week. Jonck produced a maximum break of 75 in the final to defeat Cape Town’s Tariq Samsodien 7-1 at the Hellenic Hall on Tuesday. It was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3620,3591,1234,3593,1759,3619,3618],"class_list":["post-19924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-6-reds","tag-charl-jonck","tag-port-elizabeth","tag-snooker","tag-spar-eastern-cape","tag-spar-south-african-6-reds-championship","tag-spar-south-african-snooker-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}