Nenagh is Open for Snooker
By Thomas Conway
The highly-anticipated annual Nenagh Snooker Open is underway in the historic New Institute Club Rooms on Friar Street in the town and continues until Bank Holiday Monday.
Now an international event with a host of high-ranking competitors, the tournament has captured the imagination of snooker enthusiasts and the general public, all of whom are encouraged to attend.
Preparations have been finalised and the New Institute rooms has been upgraded to an elite international standard, something the club say would not have been possible without the help and assistance of Tipperary County Council’s Festival and Events department, as well as the Applegreen Community Fund, both of which provided essential financial contributions to this project.
The draw is laden with high quality players, including homegrown New Institute stalwart Brendan O’Donoghue, who will almost certainly be in the mix in the latter stages of the tournament.
He isn’t the only Irish competitor with hopes of going deep into the competition. Dun Laoghaire native Michael Judge is a former UK Senior champion, while Kilkenny man Davy Morris is a seasoned competitor, having first become the Irish amateur champion at the age of 15 way back in 2004.
Looking beyond this island and to another a short distance away, Darryl Hill, from the Isle of Man, is a former world number 75 on the professional circuit and will fancy his chances in Nenagh this week. Other Irish men, such as Andy Lee and Joe Delaney, are also strong competitors.
The volume of ex-professional players set to feature in New Institute over the coming days only increases the allure of what was already being billed as a major international fixture, organised by sports enterprise AMC Cue Sports in conjunction with Tony Seymour, the New Institute chairperson, and the club committee.
The Nenagh Open is one of a range of events the company is now running globally, and the hope is to make Nenagh a regular annual stop on the AMC Cue Sports tour.
The Nenagh Open has existed for almost a decade and gone from strength to strength during that timeframe. But this year is a major step up. It has gone global. Anticipation could not be higher. Let the snooker begin.