Sport - Billiards & Snooker

Hard-fought win for Morgan; Indians have a good day

Wels (Austria): The 2008 IBSF World snooker championship witnessed two high quality contests both involving former professionals and winners of the IBSF World title. Welshman Darren Morgan carved out a hard-fought 4-2 victory over Thailand’s Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in an encounter which featured breaks of 69, 85, 109, 84, 96 & 74 and Wattana Pu Ob Orm, better known as James Wattana, scored an emphatic 4-1 win over Cyprus’s George Lucas with a 118 in the fifth frame.

India’s march continued unabated with all seven cueists, representing the men’s, ladies and Masters enjoying victories on day five.

The Morgan-Thepchaiya encounter was the best match of the event so far. The Thai was first in with a fluent 69 when Morgan failed to sink a red after having taken two blacks. The Welshman, who has been a semifinalist in the World professional snooker championship, was clearly disturbed with that easy missed red pot. Known for his intensity, he raised the level of his focus and won three successive frames with solid breaks of 85 in the second, 109 in the third and 84 in the fourth.

He seemed to be in a trance, which could only have been disturbed by someone who had huge belief and conviction in his own abilities. Thepchaiya provided rare grit in arresting the magical form of his opponent with a classy effort of 96 to reduce his deficit to 2-3 and then led 48-0 looking good to force the decider. But a momentary lapse in concentration and Morgan quietly cleared the table with a 74 to win 4-2.

Manan Chandra, the stylish cueist from Delhi, cruised to another comfortable victory over Chan Kwok Ming of Hong Kong and Kolkata’s Sourav Kothari cruised to a 4-0 victory over Libya’s Abdurahaman Dalli with an effort of 68 in the fourth frame to remain unbeaten in his group.

In the opening three frames of his contest against Ireland’s Jordan Brown, Advani displayed precision potting and safety play to lead 3-0 but then falling prey to sudden lapses in concentration he provided easy openings to Brown, who cracked in a 96 to win the fourth and then won the fifth with Advani on only nine points.

However, like he has done in the past few days and indeed in many tournaments in the past few years, the 24-year-old champion responded by regrouping and compiling two useful contributions of 32 and 27 to win the sixth frame 72-39 and with it the match 4-2.

In the ladies section Vidya Pillai got the better of France’s Angelique Vialard by three frames to one and in the Masters Alok Kumar performed with exceptional consistency to outclass Philip Williams of Wales. Kumar, a former Asian snooker champion impressed with runs of 57, 76 and 46.

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