National 8Ball & 9Ball Pool Championship 2008

Kolkata - West Bengal

16-26 May 2008

Shahbaz in semis

One Kolkata boy, Shahbaz Khan who now plays for PSPB, kept his date with the city by pushing out his city-mate, Brijesh Damani 9-5 and qualify for a semi final berth in the ONGC-Spring Club National 9Ball Pool Championship being played at the Spring Club in Kolkata. On a day of fluctuating fortunes, Sourav Kothari squandered a match winning lead of 6-0 and lost 7-8 to Varun Kumar but Rafath Habib pressed it home 8-5 in toppling reigning 9Ball champion, Manan Chandra.

The day indeed belonged to Rafath Habib who first white-washed local lad Ankit Kariwal 8-0 and then pulled out all the aces against 5 times National 9Ball Pool Champion Manan Chandra, to upset him 8-5. Amit Khansaheb of Delhi could only rue his bad luck in the Quarters as Rafath also checked in the semi finals 9-5.

Alok Kumar of PSPB, another former National 9Ball Champion survived Kamal Chawla of Railways 8-7, but could not keep it up against Sumit Talwar of Chandigarh and lost 6-9.

In a Quarter Final, which brought out all the thrill and drama of 9Ball pool, Faisal Khan of Railways edged out Varun Kumar of Tamil Nadu 9-8 on a tense final rack in which the opening changed hands many times. Varun very unfortunately jaw-snookered himself on the 7 Ball after slicing in the 6 ball with the finest cuts. Faisal obliged with the clearance to pip Varun 9-8.