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National Billiards & Snooker Championship
The Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy Indoor Stadium
Yousuf Guda - Hyderabad
:: Report - 13.12.2007 ::
by CSI Correspondent
Isthmit Singh Malik
Hyderabad: 13.12.2007 - The wonder boy of Indian billiards, the World billiards champion from Karnatka, Pankaj Advani took his appointed place in the final of the Seniors billiards event of the 2007 National billiards & snooker championship being played here at the Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy Indoor stadium on Thursday evening at the expense of another former World champion, Geet Sethi of Gujarat by 1323-1064 points. Facing him in the billiards final will be Railways Ashok Shandilya who beat back the tremendous fightback of fellow railwayman, Rupesh Shah before accounting for him by 1052-934 points.
It is a crying shame that in a sport in which four
world champions of billiards met in a semifinal of a national championship
there were hardly 100 spectators watching the proceedings. Conceded that the
venue is a huge one and also has an sporting ambience but to what good when
the stands remain largely empty.
The semifinals provided the cynosure with all the arts and graces which go
with this wonderful sporting culture. Rupesh down by almost 500 points chalked
up a stupendous break of 453 to claw back into reckoning but a 73 towards the
end of the two hours match saw Ashok emerge victor. Rupesh although lost the
match won the hearts of everyone priveleged to watch poetry in motion as Rupesh
piled point on point but it was not to be for him.
Geet in the other tie with Pankaj seemed out of sorts as the winner was more
consistent getting a break of plus 200 to seal the fate of his senior adversary.
Evenso, those few who were lucky to watch the duel between two champion players
went back home satisfied with the wares provided by the two skilled cueists.
On the other hand, in the Ladies snooker section, marathon matches were seen by
the lovers of the 22 balls game as the four ladies on view plodded, prodded and
inched towards victory. At the end of a four hour battle of attrition, Anuja
Chandra of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board overcame the spirited display of
Maharashtra's Heena Khandelwal winning the match by 44-59, 50-57, 62-16, 80-29
and 50-08 points while TamilNadu's Vidya Pillai rallied brilliantly to oust R.
Uma Devi in a five hour contest which saw safety play at its best before Vidya
called the shots to romp home by 45-70, 04-71, 82-34, 49-17 and 77-29 points.
The Anuja - Heena match saw the latter pocket the first two frames in a close
contest only to find the former come roaring back with some fine potting to take
the third and fourth frames to draw level. The decider saw Anuja at her best
whereas Heena looked a bit tired at the end of it all. Anuja won convincingly
eventually.
However it was the Vidya - Uma match which produced all the intricacies of
safety play in the first two frames which were won by Uma. Vidya suddenly came
alive with a sudden burst in the third potting with precision and fluency to
take the next two frames. The decisive edge was gained by Vidya in the final
frame when she pulled out some fine pots at vital moments of the game to leave
the seasoned Campaigner, Uma stranded at the end of the exercise.
In the Sub - Juniors snooker final, Rovin D'Souza frittered away a solid two
frames advantage to lose out to young 17 year Kolkata player, Shoaib Khan in
five frames. Shoaib finally won on the black decider of the fifth and final
frame when he pocketed the straight black into the top pocket after a couple of
exchanges had failed to produce a result. It was a second straight loss for
Rovin in the Sub-juniors snooker nationals for in the Bangalore Nationals held
in January this year he had lost to Shravan Mohta. Rovin had only to blame
himself for his loss since he showed signs of acute nerves, a very unproductive
limitation in an otherwise talent full armoury. It was agony for Rovin and
ecstacy for Shoaib and his supporters from Kolkata