IBSF World Snooker C/ship 11-25th Oct. 2003

It was an honour and a great relief that I finally fulfilled one of my life goals of playing in a world snooker championship which was held in Jiangmen city in the south west China region. Though to my distress I was originally overlooked by the executive of the ABSC even though I was the number four ranked player in Australia, for as it turned out that year the top three ranked players being Steve Mifsud,Neil Robertson and Johl Younger were all playing in England on the main tour,so I thought this year was my chance. Though as it turned out they picked the Australian #5 and #25 ranked players for some reason. Well after some correspondence to the ABSC executive I finally secured a third position from Australia but the catch was that I had to fully fund myself,though that was secondary in my mind to finally getting an opportunity to represent my country in snooker of which I thought that I deserved considering the top three were not participating.
The venue was fantastic,there was sixteen tables in all and fourteen of them were in the main arena which was in a few thousand seat stadium. Eighty eight players took part from a total of thirty five countries,there was eight groups of eleven players and the top four in each group progressed to the last thirty two knockout stage.
I was seeded tenth in my group and to my surprise and great satisfaction I actually won my group with only losing one match. Well in the round of thirty two I played China's Pang Wei Guo who had spent some time on the main tour,I just managed to win 5/4 and with about one hundred or so Chinese fans riding their man I was most relieved,though afterwards it did make me feel some sort of a villain.
My next opponent in the last sixteen was a future world champion 17 year old Mark Allen of Northern Ireland,well he really gave me the treatment defeating me 5/0,it was just one those days for me and my bubble just burst that day with no apparent reason.
Mark ended up being defeated in the semi-finals 8/5 by Pakistan's Saleh Mohammad,who in turn was defeated 11/6 in the final by 18 year old Indian sensation Pakanj Advani.