TALK about a perfect day.
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Bathurst’s Denzel Nicholson went undefeated when he took out dual state titles at the recent NSW Junior Snooker and Billiards Championships at Hornsby RSL.
The 16-year-old is now a five-time state champion, his latest successes coming in impressive fashion.
He made a clean sweep of the round robin games in the snooker title and by the time he was crowned state champion, had only dropped one game.
Nicholson also won the billiards state title, recording a dominant victory in the final when beating his opponent 180-72.
On top of his two 2018 championships, Nicholson was awarded the trophy for most breaks in the championship for both the snooker and billiards competitions.
“It was good to get the most breaks trophies again, but it was also good to record a new personal best for breaks in billiards,” Nicholson said.
While the wins alone were evidence of the talent that Nicholson possesses, his effort was even more impressive given his preparation.
“I actually didn’t play either game the two weeks prior to the event,” Nicholson revealed.
After his triumph at state, his focus will now be on the upcoming 2019 Australian Junior Championships, held between January 19 and 24 in Albury.
Nicholson said that he will be trying to improve on his effort from earlier this year and knows the difficulty of the challenge at hand.
Having competed at the under 15s level for the majority of the tournaments he has appeared at to date, Nicholson will step up to the under 18s category at nationals.
“I made it to the semi-finals in the 2018 championships which was good, but it will be more difficult this time around as I will be in a different age group,” Nicholson said.
When Nicholson competed in the Australian Under 15 Snooker and Billiards Championships earlier this year, he picked up six out of seven wins in the snooker round robin, before losing two games to one in the semi-final.
He completed the clean sweep in the billiards round robin, but suffered a close loss in that semi-final.
However, Nicholson did pick up the most breaks for the snooker competition, proving he can be in the mix for the national title.
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Nicholson currently sits as the 103rd best snooker player in the country overall, while ranks 128th best in billiards.
They are positions the Bathurst teenager is planning to improve on.
While enjoying playing the two different games and talented at both, Nicholson has a clear favourite.
“I definitely prefer snooker out of the two. I’m better at that one,” Nicholson said.