ONGC-IBSF World Billiards Championship 2008 :: Bangalore - India

01 - 10 September 2008

For once sanity prevailed at the Mc Dowell billiards hall of the KSBA complex here on Sunday, but only just as the display of the cueists was still very much at par with the expected standards on the second day of the five day ONGC sponsored IBSF World time format billiards championship here.

The ONGC players, Pankaj Advani, Devendra Joshi, Dhruv Sitwala and Sourav Kothari gave befitting display on the "green baize" to top their respective groups even as they all alongwith others reached the last 16 of the championship on a day unlike yesterday when there were no spectacular performances as the " big boys " seemed to be reserving their best for the appropriate occasion

Atoning for his unexpected loss at the hands of India's B. Bhaskar, the ace cueist of Thailand, Praput Chaithanasakun was back into reckoning with a punishing 1015-492 points victory over qualifier, Brijesh Damani of India. Praput who plays with a lot of deliberation and focus chalked up breaks of 289 and a 100 to dominate Damani right from the start and even though Damani also managed a good break of 109 he was never in the hunt against the Thai who won comfortably in the end.

Playing at half-cock, Rupesh Shah of India was more than a match for his Veteran country-mate , Arvind Savur winning the three hour match by 1031 - 637 points. While Savur could not do much of note , Rupesh struck breaks of a 118 and a 208. Even if Rupesh won easily, some of the shots and the manner of execution of the strokes by the Veteran were a treat to watch, a eloquent testimony of the legendary year's of his gone by.

Local hope, B. Bhaskar continuing his winning spree recorded a 1236-440 points victory over Gary Oliver of New Zealand chalking up noteworthy breaks of 175 and a 116 points on way to his win. Prem Prakash of India inflicted a drubbing to the EBOS player, Michael Wright beating him by 1527-528 points having breaks of a 101 and a 138 in the process.

Taking it easy the Indian Maestro, Geet Sethi also meted out a similar treatment against another cueist from EBOS, Gary Norman beating him by 1544-362 points. Breaks of 312, 130, 126 and a 308 points were the marked feature of the rather subdued performance today from Geet who now seems to be reserving his energy for the coming bigger matches.

Defending time format world billiards champion, Pankaj Advani was also giving a very relaxed performance having breaks of 239, 138 and a 109 points to subdue Sabdeen Mohammad of Sri Lanka by 1483-655 points. In fact today was a day which belonged to the players of the sponsors, ONGC. Dhtruv Sitwala chalking up breaks of 116 and a 138 on way to a 1312-505 points against Sri Lanka's Mohammad Aslam. On the other hand, Saurav Kothari like his team mates, Pankaj Advani and Dhruv Sitwla was also in form, when he produced superb breaks of a 170, 394, 116 and 115 to quell the challenge of the Vietnamese, Thanh Long by 1231-427 points.

But the day's best break came from another ONGC cueist, Devendra Joshi who scored a 451 against Thawat Sujaritthuakaran of Thailand, when not much separated the two players till the break came. Suddenly he struck a relentless spree of points on the top of the table besides two more centuries, a break of 144 and a break of 109 points.

With the completion of the matches of the afternoon session, the ls sixteen stage has now been reached with all the 8 pre - quarterfinal matches of four hours each slated to end late in the evening and has just got over. The Final Quarter Finalists who will play tomorrow are:

Geet Sethi vs. Thawat S.

Sourav Kothari vs. Pankaj Advani

Peter Gilchrist vs. Rupesh Shah

Dhruv Sitwala vs. Devendra Joshi

CSI Correspondent - I S Malik