Sethi earns semifinal date with Joshi

By Geet Sethi

CHRISTCHURCH, SEPT. 21. It's going to be Geet Sethi against Devendra Joshi and Ashok Shandilya versus Paul Mifsud in the semifinals of the Rockpool IBSF World billiards championship. The heartening feature of this tournament has been the gradual improvement in standard as the event has progressed. Given the round-robin format, the participants entered the quarterfinals after 24 hours of competitive play. Today, there were two more five hundred breaks recorded here at the Hornby Club in Christchurch.

A superb 505 by Devendra Joshi in his very first scoring visit set the tempo for the day. For those who thought that he would romp home a comfortable winner, his fiery opponent Mathew Bolton recovered from that initial blow by compiling sweet runs of 271, 252 and 145.

There have not been too many occasions when a player has compiled a 500-plus break early on in a session only to trail by a hundred points at the conclusion of the session.

But that's exactly what happened to Joshi, who has displayed an uncanny ability to pull off big breaks. There were only eight visits in the opening session, with Bolton averaging 101 and Joshi 81.

And to think that only three days ago, Joshi was struggling to qualify for the knock-out stage after losing two successive matches to Dhruv Sitwala and Joe Minichi!

One must give Joshi the credit for recovering his composure and enhancing his play to a level where, perhaps, he has never reached before. One must also give him credit for approaching the second session completely focussed.

Joshi was unyielding after the resumption, exhibiting superb control at the top where he played the floating white and clinched the issue with efforts of 296, 229, 78 and 282.

Awesome! That's the only word to describe our National champion's performance today.

Unimpressive start

I compiled the other five hundred, a timely 515 in the second session, which enabled me to dispose off the challenge of Alok Kumar.

The opening session was uninspiring with both Kumar and myself struggling to retain position even while at the top of the table. I managed to end the first two- hour session ahead by 300 points.

Kumar set the pace at the start of the second session as he took his unfinished break of 82 to 119. That's when I gathered the balls at the top and finished with 515. I missed a straightforward drop cannon from red to white with the white on the top cushion. Kumar was clearly disheartened after that match- winning effort. The final score was 1735-943 in my favour.

Ashok Shandilya plodded along in his typical carefree style, crushing B. Bhaskar 1887-791. The Asian Games double gold medallist has been extremely consistent in compiling three-figure breaks, though unlike Joshi and yours truly, he has been unable to compile the really big breaks.

He did impress with a solitary 464 in one of his league games but has been unable to repeat the same in the last two matches. However, he has the iron will and a huge appetite for fightbacks, which should aid him in his semifinal encounter against Paul Mifsud.

Mifsud laid to rest the aspirations of the 28-year-old Dhruv Sitwala with a 1527-1035 victory. For Sitwala, who registered a 463 on Thursday, the defeat put things in perspective.

He has, undoubtedly, been the find of the championship and with the talent, discipline and dedication he is known to possess, we will be seeing a lot more of the affable lefthander from Mumbai. Mifsud is the most seasoned cueist and against Sitwala he showed why he remains the only man to have won both, the World amateur billiards and snooker titles. Mifsud compiled runs of 151, 118, 137, 148, 122 and 151 to earn his appointed place in Saturday's semifinal.

Both the semifinals promise to be intriguing and entertaining contests. Both Mifsud and Shandilya have reputations of being great fighters and have progressed unhindered in the championship. The hallmark of their play has been their consistency in recording the bread-and-butter breaks. On the other hand, the Sethi-Joshi encounter promises some big breaks. With both Joshi and yours truly having compiled some big ones, the spectators could hope to see a 600-plus.

The semifinal line-up: Sethi-Joshi and Mifsud- Shandilya.

The results: Devendra Joshi 1584 (505, 296, 282, 229) beat Mathew Bolton 1227 (271, 252, 145, 131); Ashok Shandilya 1887 (159, 154, 216, 133, 192, 146, 118) beat Bhaskar 791 (140); Paul Mifsud 1527 (148,122, 151, 151, 118, 137,) beat Dhruv Sitwala 1035 (105, 107); Geet Sethi 1735 (120, 103, 110, 515, 248) beat Alok Kumar 943 (119, 108).

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