The Hindu : Pankaj sails into final

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 28, 2002

Sport

Sport - Billiards & Snooker

Pankaj sails into final

By Our Sports Reporter

JAMMU DEC. 27. Three pinks, three blacks, a blue and table clearance. Defending champion Pankaj Advani was at his natural best as he sailed into the final of the 27th Junior National snooker championship at the Hari Niwas Palace here on Friday.

Though the No. 2 seed, Sourav Kothari, made it to the final, the Bengal cueist was taken to the distance by Tamil Nadu's Wasim Ahmed in the semifinals.

Aditya Mehta and Rishab Thakkar, both from Maharashtra, completed the four-player final league line-up.

Pankaj was in a full flow in his quarterfinal against Himachal's Ajay Kumar. Starting with a three-black 24 in the first frame, Pankaj compiled a 52 and 23 in the second before he came up with a classy unbeaten 78. Pankaj won 84-20, 65-17, 116-14 in under an hour.

As if to reserve himself for Saturday's billiards final, Pankaj played the semifinal against Ravinder Singh without exerting himself. Or, maybe he failed to adjust with the speed of the green baize on table three. He won the first two frames 66-31 and 65-36.

The third was evenly poised when a mistake by the referee allowed Pankaj to get out of near trouble. Ravinder could have asked for re-positioning of the ball, but frittered away the chance. Pankaj went on to arrange a break of 22 with a blue and three pinks to win the frame 51-35.

On the side table, Sourav was given a scare by Wasim Ahmed. In a keenly-contested match, Wasim potted with confidence and he took Sourav to task.

Sourav barely won the first frame 58-47, but Wasim levelled the scores by taking the second 64-53.

Potting a pink and then five colour balls, Sourav raced to a handy lead in the third before winning it 64-27. The Tamil Nadu number one junior, Wasim, showed that he was also made of a stronger stuff. A break of 24 in the fourth helped him even the scores again.

In the decider, Sourav left nothing to the chance. Clearing the reds with handy breaks, the Bengal boy built up a good lead before a pink, black, brown combination gave him the clear edge. Sourav won the fifth frame 68-33.

Another Bengal cueist, Brijesh Damani, spoiled his chances of making it to the final as he allowed number three seed Rishab Thakkar to claw back into the match. Making amends to his sloppy show in billiards, Aditya Mehta held himself together and scored a deserving 3-1 win against Punjab's Dhruv Verma.

The results:

Semifinals: Pankaj Advani (Kar) bt Ravinder Singh (Raj) 66-31, 65-36, 51-35; Rishab Thakkar (Mah) bt Brijesh Damani (Ben) 57-54, 45-38, 72-45; Aditya Mehta (Mah) bt Dhruv Verma (Pun) 67-44, 65-54, 67-68, 74-31; Sourav Kothari (Ben) bt Wasim Ahmed (TN) 58-47, 53-64, 64-27, 50-61, 68-33.

Quarterfinals: Pankaj Advani bt Ajay Kumar (H.P.) 84-20, 65-17, 116-14; Ravinder Singh bt Amandeep Singh (Del) 69-58, 55-45, 65-17; Brijesh Damani bt Gagan Makkar (Chd) 61-19, 73-1, 70-8; Rishab Thakkar bt Ankur Nanda (Har) 68-38, 62-16, 75-15; Dhruv Verma bt Owais (J & K) 66-18, 62-46, 44-68, 62-42; Aditya Mehta bt Vishal Agarwal (AP) 60-42, 67-19, 59-8; Wasim Ahmed (TN) bt Kuldeep Sharma (J & K) 56-42, 57-25, 63-37; Sourav Kothari bt Vinay Katrela (Kar) 54-34, 62-39, 71-17.

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