The Hindu : Sport / Billiards & Snooker : More wild cards for India

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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
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More wild cards for India

HYDERABAD: India, by virtue of being host of the World snooker championship to be held at the HICC here from November 14, has earned five more wild card entries in men’s section, three in ladies category and five more in Masters events, according to Capt. P.V.K. Mohan, president of Billiards & Snooker Federation of India.

Rupesh Shah, Dhruv Sitwala, Balaji Reddy, M. S. Arun and Lucky Vatnani, by virtue of their national ranking, will compete in men’s event while national champion Meenal Thakur, Neeta Sanghvi and Suniti Damani figure in the Ladies section. Nadeem Ahmed, K. Ranjan, Arvind Savur, Syed Habib and Mohd Saleem are the wild card entries in the Masters category.

“Pankaj Advani, who won the title in 2003 in China, is the strongest contender from our country while Geet Sethi will compete only in the Masters event,” the BSFI president said. “Overall, there will be 96 entries in men’s section, 48 in masters and 24 in ladies categories for the championship which is one of the biggest snooker tournaments ever held in India,” he pointed out.

Some of the big names from abroad who have confirmed their participation are: Masters: Paul Thomerson (Australia), Deano Kenee (New Zealand), Noppadon Noppadorm (Thailand), Steve Bailley (Scotland), Joe Delaney (Ireland), Andre Vill (Russia), Mark Keving (England), Jaiqui Ip (China), Ramona Belmont (Hong Kong), J. Santhinee (Thailand), Sherly Smith (Australia), Delphine Morel (France), Claudia Weber (Switzerland).

Men: David Craggs (England), Alex Borg (Malta), Antony McGill (Scotland), Aing Boon Chin (Singapore), Pierre Jordan (South Africa), Thomas Fischer (Switzerland), Mohd Al Joker (Dubai), Phillip Williams (Wales), Lai Chee Wee (Malaysia), Yu Delu (China).

The Indian team:

Men: Pankaj Advani, Manan Chandra, Aditya Mehta, Brijesh Damani, Sourav Kothari, Kamal Chawla, Shabaaz Adil Khan and Alok Kumar.

Masters: Geet Sethi, Yasin Merchant, Devendra Joshi and B. V. Srinivas Murthy.

Ladies: Vidya Pillai, Chitra Magimairajan, Anuja Chandra and Neena Praveen. — Principal Correspondent

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