Tony Meo

Anthony Christian Meo (born 4 October 1959) is a retired English snooker player.

Anthony Christian Meo was born on 4 October 1959 in Tooting, London, and started playing snooker aged 13.

He was a schoolfriend of Jimmy White at Ernest Bevin Comprehensive, and the pair regularly skipped school to play snooker together.

When he was 15 (and White was 13), they were approached by "Dodgy" Bob Davis who arranged money matches for them and became their manager.

The players later signed to be managed, alongside the leading London amateur Patsy Fagan, by Henry West.

At 17, Meo became the then-youngest person known to have made an unofficial maximum break of 147.

Meo defeated White in the final to win the 1977 Pontins Junior title as well as taking the Warners Pro-Am title by winning against professional Doug Mountjoy 5–4 in the final.

He won the British under-19 title in 1978, as well as other junior titles.

Meo took the British under-19 title in 1978 with a 3–1 victory against defending champion Ian Williamson in the final.

At the 1978 Canadian Open, he achieved the most notable win of his career to that point by eliminating Alex Higgins in the semi-final, and led 10–6 in the final against Cliff Thorburn before losing the match 15–17.

He turned professional in 1979, and won the 1981 Australian Masters, 1983 Thailand Masters and 1985 Australian Masters.

He won a second Warners Open title in 1979, 5–2 against White in the final.

Meo turned professional in June 1979.

At the 1979 Canadian Open he was seeded into the last 16, where he lost 7–9 to Jim Wych.

He eliminated David Taylor from the 1979 UK Championship 9–7, and then lost to the eventual champion John Virgo 6–9 in the following round.

He made his world championship debut at the 1980 World Snooker Championship, after progressing past Jimmy van Rensberg and Pat Houlihan (both 9–1) in qualifying.

Facing Higgins, Meo was ahead after their first, and at 9–8 was a away from winning before Higgins took the last two frames with breaks of 77 and 62 to claim victory.

At the 1980 UK Championship, Meo eliminated defending champion Virgo 9–1 before losing to Steve Davis in the quarter-finals.

The 1981 English Professional Championship saw Meo eliminate Virgo, Graham Miles and Willie Thorne to reach the final.

Meo finished as runner-up, losing 3–9 to Davis.

Meo recorded his third win against Virgo in the season with a 10–6 win at the 1981 World Snooker Championship, making a break of 134 during the match.

In the second round, Meo finished his first session with Terry Griffiths at 4–4, but only won two of the next eleven frames, with Griffiths taking the match 13–6.

At the start of the 1981–82 snooker season, Meo won the 1981 Australian Masters, a short-format competition that saw two groups each of four professional players play one-frame round-robin matches, with the group winners then playing the final over three frames.

He lost 3–9 to Griffiths in the semi-finals at the 1981 UK Championship after eliminating both Higgins and Thorburn.

Davis and Meo won the 1982 World Doubles Championship.

Meo also reached the semi-finals of the 1982 Masters.

The 1982 UK Championship was a repeat of 1981 in that he reached the semi-finals and lost to Griffiths, this time 7–9.

He won four World Doubles Championship titles, partnering Davis, and the 1983 World Team Classic representing England alongside Davis and Tony Knowles.

He played snooker together with his schoolfriend Jimmy White as a teenager.

Aged seventeen, Meo became the then-youngest person known to have made an unofficial maximum break of 147.

He reached the World Championship quarter-finals for the first time at the 1983 tournament, and finished the season by winning the 1983 Pontins Brean Sands tournament, with a 9–7 final victory against Silvino Francisco.

In the 1983–84 snooker season, he won the 1983 Thailand Masters, and was a semi-finalist at the 1983 Professional Players Tournament.

In December 1983, Davis and Meo retained the World Doubles Championship.

The following month, they faced each other in the final of the Lada Classic.

He reached the final of the 1984 Lada Classic but lost in the.

He took the 1986 English Professional Championship title, and retained it in 1987.

In 1986, Meo was one of five players under Barry Hearn's management (along with Davis, Terry Griffiths, Willie Thorne and Dennis Taylor) who appeared on "Snooker Loopy", a hit single about the game recorded with Chas & Dave.

He made a break of 147 in his 1988 Matchroom League match against Stephen Hendry, and won the 1990 International League.

He won the 1989 British Open by defeating Dean Reynolds 13–6 in the final, and was runner-up to Steve Davis at the 1984 Classic.

He retired from professional play after the 1996–97 snooker season and became a wrist watch consultant.