Adegbite Aderibigbe is the winner takes all of the second Nigeria qualifiers of the Joy Heyball Masters DivisionOone Tour 3. “The Boss”, as he is popularly known in the billiards community, put up a spectacular show to ward off all schemes from Nojeem Waliu at the sporting event held at Nicon Town Recreation Centre, Lekki from 4th to 8th July.
The tournament, which had three groups at the preliminary stage, had in Group A Adebayo Adekunle, Lawani Nosa and Kayode Adeoye; Group B Christopher Abiodun, Aderibigbe and Temitope Koye, while group C featured Abdulkabir raji, Azeez Toyin and Nojeem Waliu.
It was a contest of the best of 10 racks round robin in each group with the winners of the groups proceeding to join Bamidele Shehu, who had a bye advantage for winning the first edition of the qualifiers.
To get to the final Aderibigbe, who topped Group B with two points, beat Abiodun 6-1 in his first game, and Koye 6 -1 setting him up to meet Adekunle in semi-final which ended in an 8-0 decisive victory.
In a keenly contested final Aderibigbe squared up with Waliu, who led till the end of the third time out of the contest but after deploring a more defensive tactical strategy Adegbite was able to level up the match at 10-10, Aderibigbe maintained his tactical strategy which gave him a 15-11 victory at the end of the final game.
The victory fetched Aderibigbe the N100,000 prize money, courtesy of Moneytronics Microfinance Bank, who are partnering a Snooker and Pool Players Alliance of Nigeria-sanctioned tournament for the first time.
By emerging the winner of the Joy Heybal Masters Division One Tour #3 Nigeria Qualifier, Aderibigbe will be joining Shehu, winner of Tour #2 edition to travel to China to participate in the main event that is scheduled to hold from 17th – 27th August, 2023.
Heyball was introduced to Nigeria in October 2019 after the signing of the agreement between Joy Billiards Sports Promotion Company, China, and Fiji Ventures Limited. The agreement requires that FIJI Ventures Limited organised five Nigeria qualifiers under the Joy Heyball Masters brand name with the winners being offered sponsorship opportunities to participate in the main events in China.
President of Snooker and Pool Players Alliance, Joachim Idada reiterated the need to continue to build cue sport in Nigeria. “There is light at the end of the tunnel and we will continue to build the proper structure that will build Billiard’s sport in Nigeria and connect with the growing international circuits. we must be counted as a Billiard playing nation in Africa and globally, we must have our players like Shehu, Aderibigbe, Waliu and the others that are scattered all over Nigeria being given the opportunity to pursue a possible international career, this is just the beginning”, he said.
