National 8Ball & 9Ball Pool Championship 2008

Kolkata - West Bengal

16-26 May 2008

Maiden 8Ball Pool Title for Meenal

Meenal Thakur of Maharashtra hit a purple patch in thrashing Vidya Pillai of Tamil Nadu 5 – 0 in the final of the ONGC Spring Club National 8Ball Pool Championship to win her first national title in Pool games. She had already lost twice in the 9Ball Pool finals, though she has the National Billiards & Snooker titles in her kitty.

In the final today, she rode a wave of  strong potting and positioning to blank Vidya completely.  So over-riding was her form that she racked out Vidya in 3 racks, each time clearing all the balls in one innings. The shot of the match was the black that she doubled in the nominated pocket in the 3^rd rack.

Vidya continued her bad luck and form in the 9Ball pool as well, losing 3-4 to Indira Gowda of Karnataka in the quarter finals. However, Indira herself showed no respect for even defending champion M. Chitra and beat her 5-3. She now plays Anuja Chandra in the finals who avenged her loss to her sister Meenal in the 8Ball Semi-finals by beating her 5 – 0 in the 9 Ball Semi-final.

The women’s 9Ball Pool final between Indira and Anuja is slated to be held at 10am  on Sunday, to be followed by the prize distribution ceremony for Women’s events.

In the opening rounds of the men’s 8 ball nationals, defending champion Devendra Joshi and other seasoned campaigners D. Lilly, Manan, S. Talwar, Kamal Chawla had easy matches to warm ukp for bigger things.

Results Ladies 9Ball SEMI Final:

Indira Gowda bt Chitra M. :: 5 – 3

Anuja Chandra bt Meenal Thakur :: 5– 0

Results Ladies 9Ball QTR Final:

Chitra M. bt Achint Maan :: 4 – 1

Indira Gowda bt Vidya Pillai :: 4 – 3

Meenal Thakur bt Suniti Damani :: 4 – 2

Anuja Chandra bt Shivani Agarwal :: 4 – 1