IBSF World Snooker Championship 2009

IBSF World Snooker Championship 2009

News & Updates

REPORT OF 15.11.2009

The 2009 ONGC-IBSF World Snooker Championship 2009 got underway today here at the plush Hall 3 of Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Hyderabad with the participation of 96 cueist in the Men Category, 48 in Masters (40+) and 24 in Ladies.

Pankaj Advani, the 2003 World Snooker Champion from India started his proceeding with a fluent win against Daniel Thorp of Australia. Though Pankaj survived first frame on Pink ball, but second frame saw Pankaj in his brilliant best as he went on to knock ball after ball with pin-point precision and compiled a fine break of 71. Visibly shatterd by Advani’s sustained aggression, Thorp could not put up any resistance as Pankaj completed the proceeding with a fluent win by 4-0 (58-39, 109(71)-06, 71-21, 68-05).

Sandeep Gulati and Alok Kumar were the other Indians who had a good field day as they posted good win aginast their opponents Moosa Saleem of Mauritius Mekdad Murad Taqi (Kuwait) respectively.

The biggest disappointment from the Indian point-of-view was however, Manan Chandra’s loss at the hands of Alex Borg of Malta 2-4 after leading by 2 frames to nil.

In Masters Category last years runner-up Geet Sethi played in the morning session and won comfortably against Mostafa Aly of Egypt 3-0 (75-20, 60-03, 70-18), Devendra Joshi , S.A. Saleem, K. Ranjan and Venkatesham were among the other masters cueists of India who won their matches on the opening day.

In masters, last year’s champion Dene O’Kane of New Zealand defeated BVS Murty of India 3-0 and Darren Morgan won against Ali Jaffer of France by an identical margin.

In the Ladies category, Chitra Magimairaj and Anuja Chandra of India won their matches comfortably, but current National Ladies Snooker Champion, Meenal Thakur lost to Yu Ching Ching of Hongkong 1-3.