India expected to excel at World Open

By Geet Sethi

CHRISTCHURCH, SEPT. 10. The Mayor of Christchurch inaugurated the 2001 World Open billiards championship with a grand dinner hosted for the players and officials at the City Hall on Monday.

The event, which brings together the amateur and professionals on a common platform has been welcomed by one and all in New Zealand as it allows the keen followers of the sport to be exposed to the artistry of the best cueists from around the world.

With a field of 36 cueists from five countries the event will miss the professionals from the U.K., in particular Mike Russell. But with the winner's cheque of NZ $ 3000 not even covering their air fare from the U.K., players like Russell, the world No. 1 and Peter Gilchrist can be excused for not making the long journey to participate in the event.

But the absence of Australia's Robby Foldvari is intriguing as Christchurch is just a three-hour flight away from Melbourne where the former World professional champion lives. However there is a 10 member amateur contingent from Australia and along with India, which is represented by ten cueists and New Zealand (12 players,) accounts for the majority of the participants.

Paul Mifsud, the 1979 amateur champion and the only player to have won both the world amateur billiards and snooker titles is also here.

The Indian challenge looks to be the strongest in the 36-man field. Manoj Kothari, the 1990 World champion, Ashok Shandilya, the double gold medallist in the 1998 Asian Games, Devendra Joshi, Nalin Patel, ranked 8 in the professional ranking and upcoming cueists Vishal Madan and Dhruv Sitwala are joined by Arun Agrawal, B. Bhaskar, Alok Kumar and yours truly to provide a formidable challenge in the tournament. That one of the Indians will win the event seems to be a certainty.

The challenge will clearly come from Mathew Bolton, the 22-year- old Australian billiards champion, whose highest tournament break is 649. He is young, hungry for success and extremely talented and one will eagerly look at his form over the next two weeks.

Mifsud, the plucky and experienced Maltese is always a threat and although he has not won an international title after the 1979 world amateur title, he is a thoroughbred and can never be written off.

The format is round robin upto the last 16 after which it will be a knock-out. The welcome news also is that all matches are over four hours, which encourages break building. The absence of the baulk line rule will also act as a catalyst for big breaks.

Eight tables have been installed in a big hall on the first floor of the Hornsby Club and clearly, there has been a lot of effort and hard work put in by the organizers.

The players have been divided into six groups of six players each with the winner and runner-up of each group qualifying for the knock-out stage. Four other players will be selected from the groups on the basis of their performance in their groups to make up the 16 players.

Geet Sethi is the top seed and Nalin Patel, the second seed primarily based on their position in the World professional rankings. The other seeded players are: Ashok Shandilya (3), Devendra Joshi (4), Mathew Bolton (5) and Paul Mifsud (6). Competitive play starts on Tuesday.

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