The Hindu : Sport : Talwar in last eight

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 30, 2007
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Sport - Sports : General

Talwar in last eight

Principal Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Sumit Talwar marked an impressive break of 15 canons in demolishing former Asian billiards champion Devendra Joshi, 85-57, and made it to the quarterfinals in the National one-cushion carombole championship at the Billiardco Hall here on Sunday.

Talwar, the member of the 9-ball pool team in the Doha Asian Games, set the pace early on to establish a lead of at least 20 points. In his 57th visit, Talwar bettered the highest break of 11 canons set by Kamal Chawla earlier in the day, by scoring 15. The points scored by Talwar and Joshi were also the highest in the given timeframe.

India’s No. 8 snooker player, Kamal Chawla, continued his run with a tantalisingly close win over Dhruv Sitwala.

Chawla started tentatively as he accumulated just two points from his first 11 visits to the table. He came into the match on his 25th visit when he posted eight-canon break. A nine in the 30th and 11 in the 43rd helped him take a defendable lead as Sitwala struggled towards the end.

Sitwala had two breaks of seven, a six and a four, but he found the positions difficult under pressure of waning time. Chawla eventually won 72-69 when Sitwala needed a break of seven in his 60th and last visit, but managed just three.

The results: Pre-quarterfinals: Kamal Chawla bt Dhruv Sitwala 72-69, Anuj Uppal bt Kamal Deep Singh 67-35, Sumit Talwar bt Devendra Joshi 85-57, Sandeep Gulati w.o Siddharth Anand, Ajay Rehani bt Rafath Habib 65-52, Manan Chandra bt Anil Sabhrawal 77-38.