Sport - Billiards & Snooker   

Top names to vie for world title

— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

EYEING THE TITLE: Geet Sethi, seen practising on Sunday, will be keen to capture the IBSF World billiards championship.

BANGALORE: Some of the top names in the game will be present at the Karnataka Sate Billiards Association (KSBA) hall with a singular ambition of annexing the IBSF World billiards title scheduled to start here on Monday.

Among those in the fray are Geet Sethi, the multiple World champion, Pankaj Advani, three-time World billiards champion, Rupesh Shah, the reigning World points format champion, Peter Edward Gilchrist, the two-time World professional billiards champion and Praprut Chaithanasakum, a former IBSF champion.

While Sethi, despite being in the best of nick, feels that either Advani, Gilchrist or Chaithanasakum are capable of winning, Chaithanasakum and Gilchrist are of the view that the Indians at home will be difficult to overcome.

“We don’t play much of the time format and little of billiards at home” said Chaithanasakum and Gilchrist, who has shifted his allegiance to Singapore.

“At the most it is the points format and that too just 100 points up,” said Chaithanasakum, who has three Thailand National billiards titles under his belt.

The 46-year-old Chaithanasakum is the dark horse of the lot and with a full time billiards/snooker in his routine he should be a name to contend with.

The long-legged Peter Gilchrist, meanwhile, will be the man to beat. “He is phenomenal and a tough nut to crack,” said Advani while Sethi rated the lanky Gilchrist as a serious contender.

Gilchrist, like most Indians, swears by billiards.

“I’ve been playing this game since I was 12 and it’s with the development of the sport that I even switched citizenship to Singapore and Asia,” admitted Gilchrist.

Mike Russel too is contemplating on shifting base to Qatar and Doha for the same reasons.

Rupesh Shah, the defending champion in the points format, looked fine-tuned. “I’ve been playing well of late and should do well.”

But the Indian challenge does not end there.

With the likes of former world champion Devendra Joshi, the unpredictable Prem Prakash and Shyam Jagtiani coming through the qualifying ranks anything is possible.

The groupings:

Group A: Rupesh Shah (Ind), Devendra Joshi (Ind) and Sabdeen Mohamed (SL).

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