The second match of the first session of the championship, stating at 10 am on 15 August 2019, opposes Tony Drago from Malta to Dene O’Kane from New-Zealand

Tony Drago, nicknamed “The Tornado” is fast, furious, emotional and larger than life.

Nothing will tell you more or better about Tony than this documentary he filmed with Snooker Legends.

 

At the snooker table, Tony is best known for his extremely fast play. Ronnie O’Sullivan is a snail in comparison…. there is never a dull moment when he plays.

Tony played a lot on the Snooker Legends circuit, and notably was a member of the winning “rest of the World” team at the 2013 Legends Cup!

In 2017, Tony suffered a very serious health scare. Fortunately he’s recovered now albeit a light lighter than he used to be. How godd is his form though remains to be seen.

You can read about Tony’s carreer in his profile on this blog

And more about Tony in his profile by Elliott West

Dene O’Kane was born in 1963, in New Zealand. He first qualified as a professional snooker player in 1984, and played on the snooker Main Tour until 2001. He then requalified in 2006 but was immediately relegated at the end of the 2006/2007 season. His highest ranking was 18, and his highest break a 140, which he made at the 1990 World Championship. His best result on the main tour was a final – which he lost by 9-8 to Mike Hallett – at the 1989 Hong Kong Open, back then a ranking event.

After being relegated in 2001, Dene continued to play as an amateur with considerable success: he won the BSF World Masters Championship three times (2004, 2005 and 2008) and he was Oceania Champions three times as well (2005, 2006, 2007).

More recently he played in the 2012 Seniors World Championship organised at the time by Worldsnooker. Dene was seeded in the last 16 and beat Barry West and Jimmy White before losing in the semi finals to Tony Chappel. Here is this SF match, refereed by the legendary John Williams, who also refereed the famous 1985 World final:

Mini (non-) preview

I have to admit that I have absolutely no clue about how this match will pan out. Dene played really well in 2012, but that was 7 years ago, Tony hasn’t played much over the last two years due to health issues. Therefore I honestly can’t predict anything at all.