IBSF World Billiards 2010

26 AUGUST 2010

Geet obtained top-seed. mike, pankaj and dhruv also topped their groups

Session 1 (Last Session for League Stage)

Match 1: The first match of the session was irrelevant as neither player could reach the Knockout. Though Nay Thway Oo (Myanmar) defeated Aidan Murray (Ireland) by 443 points.

Match 2: Pankaj already qualified for the top-8 but wanted to better his scoring against Phil Mumford (England). Phil could not manage any three figure score, whereas Pankaj smashed 130, 309, 334 and 206 in the 19th, 27th, 32nd and 40th visit to seal the match by 940 points and obtained 3rd seed for the quarter final line-up.

Match 3: Kyaw Oo got an easy challenge in his last league match. He scored three century breaks before defeating Tae Hoon Jung (Korea) by 640 points.

Match 4: Geet, after winning first his three matches in style, came to the table eyeing the top-seed spot for the knock-out. As Mike had already finished his matches yesterday, Geet required a 564 point winning margin in his last match against Alok Kumar to obtain top seed. With the same focus, he started scoring from his first visit cracking first off the cushion cannon on baulk-line red. On reaching 147 he went out of position and missed. Alok countered with 138 in the seventh visit and stepped ahead Geet by 30 odd points before he left Geet with red on spot and white hanging on side cushion perfectly suitable for Geet to start with white in-off. Geet did so and by the 5th shot he reached top-table for his favourite postman’s knock and within 30 minutes he crossed 600 mark break on board. Three times during his break he went out of position but beautifully recovered them within two shots, but the fourth time the red landed on the side rail with cueball hanging on 3 number pocket with very little space to hit bottom. Though Geet tried, he missed alignment and the yellow fumbled on the jaw of the pocket. Thereafter Geet also crafted two century breaks and one double century before defeating Alok by 1013 points.

Match 5: Peter also wanted a big score as he got a weak challenge in the last league match. Against Min Hu Baek of Korea, Peter scored freely and defeated the Korean by 1601 points. His 1938 comprised 201, 411, 136, 103 in the 5th, 17th, 20th, 31st and 33rd visits respectively.

Match 6: In another match of no consequence, Billy Bousfield defeated Gary Oliver by 35 points. Billy managed only one century break in the 29th visit.

Match 7: The only “winner to qualify” match of the session was between Rupesh Shah and Devendra Joshi. Joshi outplayed in point format at the league stage did not want to let this one go and started with same focus scoring 186 in the 3rd visit. Rupesh, seeing the danger ahead, countered Joshi by crafting 112 in the 4th visit before Joshi made another 178 in the 10th. Both the cueists played clutching each other for the next two hours, when Rupesh started scoring and crafted 185 and 86 in the 16th and 17th visits to take a lead of 258 points and missed out leaving Joshi to cover that in the remaining 20 minutes. Joshi without wasting the chance got on with the job and beautifully crossed 200 points and continued inching ahead to surpass Rupesh’s lead. He do not want to let go of this opportunity but missed a red in-off on top pocket falling short by 14 points with 2 minutes left. Rupesh scored a few more points and gave one more chance to Joshi but time was too short for Joshi to recover and he lost by 24 points.

Match 8: Another dead rubber, Chul Ho Hwang defeated Abdul Omar (Sri Lanka) by 90 points.

Quarter Finals: Pankaj rocks in the end; Peter wins by shortest victory margin so far

Match 1: Geet playing sheer for his own satisfaction, demonstrated a class of billiards while defeating Ashok Shandilya by highest victory margin in quarter finals i.e. 1230 points. Continuing morning sessions form in quarter finals, Geet started making breaks from 5^th visit onwards followed with three double century breaks to carry his lead beyond reach of Ashok. Ashok only managed a meager break of 44 during his before losing by such a huge margin.

Match 2: With a sheer upset in Indian camp, Dhruv Sitwala failed to manage his handsome lead, which he took since start crafting 109, 306 & 118 on board, and lost to Peter by mere 20 odd points. Peter through out the match keep chasing Dhruv and finally made it thru by with 20 points lead in the end crafting 145 unfinished. He will take on Geet Sethi in Semi Final 1.

Match 3: Frustrated with his own performance throughout the match, Pankaj finally decided to go freely without any aim and smashed highest break of the day i.e. 709 unfinished and defeated Rupesh Shah by 595 points. Trailing by nearly 170 points in first 2 hours in three hours match, decided to go with open mind and that really helped him for crafting his second highest break of the career (his highest is 867).

Match 4: Mike opened the match with two massive breaks of 231 and 633 in 1^st and 4^th visits to take an excellent lead against Kyaw Oo. Kyaw Oo went on steady thereafter and scored 239 an, 187 and 109 to narrow the lead but lost by 277 points.

Semi Finals Line Up:

Geet Sethi (India) vs. Peter Gilchrist (Singapore)

Mike Russell (England) vs. Pankaj Advani (India)