Indians begin with commanding wins

By Geet Sethi

CHRISTCHURCH, SEPT. 11. The Rockpool IBSF World billiards championship got off to a flying start with four Indians - Ashok Shandilya, Nalin Patel, Devendra Joshi and Geet Sethi - scoring emphatic victories.

In a format, which will take a re-look at the seedings, at the end of the round robin stage by calculating the total points difference in all the league games, it becomes imperative for each player to score as much as possible. It is not good enough to win, but win by as big a margin as possible.

The highlight of the first day's play was the glittering 330 break compiled by Joshi towards the concluding stages of his contest against Joe Ifa, a 65-year-old veteran New Zealander. The National champion fired in other notable efforts of 234, 142 and 151 to overwhelm his opponent 2030-577.

However in terms of sheer quality of play, both Shandilya and Sethi eclipsed Joshi's performance. The double gold medallist, playing on my adjoining table, accumulated 2280 points to his opponents 299.

Playing in a round robin format and without the restriction of the baulk line rule after many years, I had come well prepared for this championship. And today I seemed to reap the rich rewards of that practice as I went on a scoring rampage totalling 2612 points in the four-hour contest against New Zealander Peri Lilii.

Playing with a rapid rhythm and capitalising on the postman's knock, I scored breaks of 146, 126, 201, 188 & 253 en- route my 2612-396 victory. What was heartening was also the fact that I averaged 50.23, which is the true indicator of my performance. Shandilya, Joshi and Nalin Patel averaged 28, 29 and 25 respectively.

Australia's Mathew Bolton was also impressive in his 1832-473 win over New Zealand's Tony Stephens and with three double figure breaks of 254, 211 and 233 he will be the one to challenge the Indians here in Christchurch.

B. Bhaskar, Alok Kumar, Manoj Kothari and Arun Agrawal all won their first encounters as well, albeit not with the same fluency and flourish as Shandilya, Joshi, Patel and myself.

Malta's Paul Mifsud, the only cueist in the world to have won both the World amateur billiards and snooker titles, was also in commanding form as he outclassed Brian Moulday 1746-547. Mifsud is known to improve with every game, and given his experience and his knowledge of the game, he is sure to better his form by the time the league matches are through.

The pattern of how the championship is going to progress seems to be emerging even though we have just started the tournament. Of the Indians, Joshi, Patel, Shandilya and Sethi will be there in the top 6 seeds to be decided at the end of the round robin format. Mathew Bolton and Mifsud should be the other two to make it to the top six seedings for the knock-out stage.

The class difference between these six cueists and the others seems to be glaringly evident, though one has yet to see Australia's Neil Croft perform.

So a satisfying day from the Indian perspective and Michael Ferreira, the official coach to the four Indians who have been paid for their expenses by the Government of India, will be pleased by the performance of not only those four cueists but also of the other six Indian members.

lThe results: Ashok Shandilya 2280 (112, 121, 162, 159) bt Keith Taylor 299, Nalin Patel 1507 (104, 221) bt Derek Gibb 601, Devendra Joshi 2030 (330, 234, 142, 151) bt Joe Ifa 577, Geet Sethi 2612 (146, 126, 201, 188, 253) bt Peri Lilii 396, Mathew Bolton 1832 (254, 233, 110) bt Tony Stephens 473, Paul Mifsud 1746 bt Brian Moulday 547, Eric Worsely 1103 bt Rex Swain 639, B. Bhaskar 1561 (125, 105) bt Ron Milicich 536, Alok Kumar 1676 bt Malcolm Cooke 700, Joe Minici 1155 bt Ray Habgood 644, Manoj Kothari 1123 bt Gus Templeton 866, Arun Agrawal 1245 bt John McKay 631.

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