Sport - Sports : General

Advani and Kothari start with wins

Wels (Austria): The 2008 IBSF World snooker started here at the BRP-Rotax hall on Monday with India’s Manan Chandra receiving a walkover from Susantha of Sri Lanka. Pankaj Advani negotiated an easy 4-1 victory over Malta’s experienced cueist Alex Borg and Sourav Kothari, the third Indian in the fray earned himself a well deserved 4-0 win over Franz Staehli of Switzerland. India is represented by an eight-member team including coach Subhash Agarwal.

The event, which concludes on November 8 is a 13-day extravaganza which features a total of 183 cueists from across all five continents and across three disciplines i.e. the men’s, ladies’ and Masters events.

It is hard to pick a winner in today’s fiercely competitive snooker environment, which throws up new winners every year but I would like to stick my neck out and pick at least four cueists who should feature in the semifinal stage of the event.

The first is Wattana Pu Ob Orm, the Thai prodigy who after having enjoyed the third spot in the world professional circuit in the mid nineties is now back to representing Thailand in the IBSF world championship which he won in Sydney in 1988.

Just a year earlier, Welshman Darren Morgan had clinched the IBSF world title in Bangalore, with an emphatic 11-4 win over Malta’s Joe Grech and then went on to reach the semifinal of the world professional snooker championships again in the mid nineties.

Both these cueists will be the overwhelming favourites in this tournament. Their pedigree, years of experience and rock solid technique will be hard for others to overcome.

I must pick both Manan Chandra and Pankaj Advani to be the other two cueists, who will find a place in the semifinals.

Manan by virtue of his flair and commanding break building abilities and Pankaj due to his fantastic upward career graph, which would have injected huge doses of confidence in the 24 year old.

Advani announced his presence at the international snooker arena with a 11-5 victory over Pakistan’s Saleh Mhammed in the final of the 2003 IBSF world championships to win his first world title in snooker just a few days before his 18th birthday.

Pankaj exhibited fine break building abilities in his opening match against Alex Borg compiling breaks of 57 in the first frame and a 70 in the fifth.

But the highlight of the opening day was clearly the classy performance from Darren Morgan who turned on the magic from the opening shot reeling off breaks of 84, 112 and 81 to crush Israel’s Lior Pinhas.

In the ladies event India’s Anuja Chandra displayed her fighting instincts by overcoming a 0-2 deficit to win 3-2 against Finland’s Nita Vitala and early this morning Vidya Pillai, the Indian National Champion outclassed Shirley Smith of Australia 3-0.

From the Masters section, India’s Alok Kumar cruised to a 3-0 victory over Dean Thomas of Switzerland.

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