Sport - Billiards & Snooker

Girish pots snooker title

— Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

R. Girish.

Chennai: R. Girish won a tight eleven-frame final against Varun Kumar to emerge senior snooker champion at the Tamil Nadu State-ranking tournament here on Sunday.

After the match had seesawed all the way through until the tenth frame, Girish emphatically took the eleventh 80-10, capitalising on two early misses by Varun — a red and a black, both straightforward — to pull away with aggressive, speedy breaks of 30 and 20, before finally sealing the tie with another 30 break.

In the beginning, Varun had looked the more composed of the two, with Girish conceding five straight fouls early in the first frame, having snookered his own cue ball amidst a cluster of reds after opening his account at the top right pocket.

From there to the tenth frame, the two players won alternate frames, before Girish upset the pattern in the decisive eleventh.

The sixth frame was representative of the entire match. Girish, after going ahead 54-23, lost steam, and Varun clawed his way to 49-54.

Both missed potting pink once, before Varun sunk it to go 55-54, but in the end, after both players had pursued it around the table fruitlessly, Girish dropped the black into the top left pocket to win it 61-55.

The results: Senior Snooker: Final (best of 11 frames): R. Girish (RGS) bt Varun Kumar (MCC) 32-77, 59-48, 23-78, 66-10, 36-70, 61-55, 25-63, 71-24, 34-69, 66-32, 80-10.