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Billiards & Snooker
Rupesh Shah cracks 200 mark
By Kirti Patil
Rupesh Shah of Gujarat, who posted the first double century break of the 68th National billiards championship, in action against Antim Singhi of Railways. - Photo: Paras Shah
AHMEDABAD, JAN. 26. Former champion Rupesh Shah realised the first double century break of the event when he scored 211 in his 646- 359 win against Railways' Antim Singhi, in the 68th National billiards championship here on Saturday.
In a very high-quality match witnessed so early in the tournament, Rupesh edged past the talented Singhi thanks to his well-crafted 211, on the ninth visit. Unlike in other league matches, both the players cashed in on every visit compiling good scores. Impressively, there were a total of just 16 visits by each player. In other matches, each player, on an average, makes more than 50 visits, in the two-hour-long contests.
Defending champion Devendra Joshi of Maharashtra opened his campaign on a confident note, outclassing V.M. Benny of Kerala 877-242. International Joshi spent more than one-and-a- half hours on the table as Benny found it tough scoring points on tricky formations.
Joshi missed a century break when he failed to cross his cue ball over the baulk line before passing 100, but he amended his mistake later on and came up with a neatly polished 156.
Meanwhile, Dharminder Lilly of Punjab and qualifier Rafat Habib of Railways won their third straight league matches and confirmed qualification to the pre-quarterfinals, from group `G'. Consequently, seventh-seeded Yasin Merchant has gone out of contention.
The results:
Preliminary league: Group A: I.S. Malik (UP) w/o Deepak Goel (Har); Mukesh Rehani (Del) bt Vishal Abrol (J & K) 644-268; Geet Sethi (Guj) w/o Deepak Goel (Har).
Group B: Devendra Joshi (Mah) bt V.M. Benny (Ker) 877-242; Md. Asim (Ben) w/o Kuldeep Singh (Raj).
Group C: Neeraj Kumar (Bih) bt A. Haque (Ori) 529-452; Ashok Shandilya (Rly) bt K. Someshwar Rao (AP) 670-344; M.E. Jokhi (Guj) bt Neeraj Kumar (Bih) 529-422.
Group D: Manoj Kothari (Ben) bt Ajay Rehani (Del) 652-405.
Group E: Shyam Jagtiani (Rly) bt Jasvinder Singh (Raj) 700-243; Harish Gandhi (MP) bt D. Rajkumar (Kar) 701-467.
Group F: Rupesh Shah (Guj) bt Antim Singhi (Rly) 646-359; Nalin Patel (Mah) w/o Manish Srivastava (Chg); Nalin Patel (Mah) bt Harpreet Singh (Ori) 704-202.
Group G: Dharminder Lilly (Pun) bt Pamin Shah (Guj) 647-488; Rafat Habib (Rly) bt Sohail Khalid (J & K) 777-245.
Group H: Siddharth Parikh (Rly) bt Prem Prakash (TN) 629-470; M.S. Reddy (AP) w/o Sanjeev Dhawan (Har).
Junior snooker: Third round: Sourav Kothari (Ben) bt Karthik Bhargava (Raj) 63-56, 57-41, 57-9.
Second round: Pankaj Advani (Kar) bt Neerav (Ker) 76-1, 74-29, 45-53, 58-9.
First round: Akram Khan (Ben) bt Ravish Surti (Guj)73-34, 42-56, 69-20, 36-54, 90-61; Sourav Kothari (Ben) bt Sunny Chaddha (Del) 66-49, 56-34, 52-47; Dhruv Verma (Pun) w/o Gagandeep Makkar (Chg); Wasim Ahmed (TN) bt Honey Chaddha (Chg) 44-35, 67-30, 57-20; Maneesh Bahel (UP) bt Bharat Srivastava (HP) 63-45, 34-60, 57-52, 71-23; Neerav (Ker) bt Vipul Arora (Pun) 36-78, 43-40, 49-22, 72-43.
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