ONGC’s Rupesh Shah capped a fine day, displaying his diverse talent in cue sport by winning the billiards title without being stretched in the BPCL 14th PSPB inter-unit billiards and snooker tournament at the PYC Hindu Gymkhana on Friday.
After knocking out the defending champion Sourav Kothari in the individual snooker quarterfinals, the Ahmedabad-based Shah turned out to sharper and precise than his younger opponent, Indian Oil’s Dhvaj Haria in the final played over points and set to five games.
In the absence of teammate Pankaj Advani and BPCL’s Manan Chandra the billiards competition got somewhat depleted; both returned home to prepare for a day or two for the IBSF-ACBS World Team Championship in Doha.
Shah in between staged a remarkable recovery from 0-2 down to score a fine win against ONGC-teammate Kothari in the coloured-ball competition.
Shah will now play Damani in the semifinals and Shrikrishna, who also registered a 3-2 win against GAIL’s Ishpreet Singh Chadha, will take on IOC’s Sparsh Pherwani in the second semifinal.
The results:
Billiards Open (Set to 100 points, five games) final: Rupesh Shah (ONGC) bt Dhvaj Haria (IOC) 3-0 (100-45, 100 (76)-67, 101- 92.
Semifinal: Rupesh Shah bt Brijesh Damani (IOC) 3-0 (100 (92)-10, 100-16, 100-34.
3rd and 4th place: Brijesh Damani bt S. Shrikrishna (BPCL) 3-0(100-18, 100-27, 100-33).
Snooker Open: Quarterfinals: Brijesh Damani bt Laxman Rawat (IOC) 3-0( 65-28, 58-11, 97(85)-27; S.Shrikrishna bt Ishpreet Singh Chadha (GAIL) 3-2(46-63, 55-72, 76-13, 108(56,50)-16, 63-37); Sparsh Pherwani (IOC) bt Shahbaz Khan (BPCL) 3-2(20-56, 32-74,78-57, 72-44, 82-9); Rupesh Shah bt Sourav Kothari (ONGC) 3-2 (50-73,72-28,64-31,46-63,61-52).
