Geet Sethi recorded two thumping victories in the Manisha National billiards and snooker championships at the PYC Hindu Gymkhana here on Sunday. Playing his 33rd National championships Sethi was ruthless in his 3-0 victories against Punjab's Anmoldeep Singh and Railways' Shekar Surve. He finished both the league matches in about 40 minutes.
Five time National champion and the top seed Pankaj Advani dropped the opening game, but returned to his winning ways against Tamil Nadu's D. Bhuvaneshwaran and Uttar Pradesh's Kankan Shamshi. In fact the defending champion record two century breaks.
Last year's runner-up at Chennai, Karnataka's Balchandra Bhaskar struck form to trounce Bihar's Anupam Jha.
On a day when 40 league matches were scheduled, an upset was recorded when Bihar's Shivam Arora got the better of Railways' Siddharth Parikh. The top two players from eight groups will proceed to the knock-out stage. Forty league matches will be played on Monday and Tuesday.
The results (all league matches set to five games and 100 up format): Group A: Pankaj Advani (PSPB) bt D. Bhuvaneshwaran (TN) 3-1 [32-100, 103-22, 100(100)-0, 101-35] and bt Kankan Shamshi (UP) 3-0 [102 (102)-5, 100(61)-13, 102 (51)-34], Durga Prasad (RSPB) bt Kankan Shamshi (UP) 3-0 [100-39,101-61, 101(54)-33], D. Bhuvaneshwaran (TN) bt Sandeep Gulati (Del) 3-0 [101-59, 101-85(48), 100-53].
Group B: B. Bhaskar (Kar) bt Anupam Jha (Bihar) 3-0 [102 (69)-12, 100(57)-2, 101(56)-6], S. Simhachalam (RSPB) bt Nitin Kohli (UP) 3-1 [101-40, 63-100(54), 100-84, 100-85], Nitin Kohli (UP) bt Jha 3-0 [101-46, 101-52, 101-29].
Group C: Geet Sethi (Guj) bt Anmoldeep Singh (Pun) 3-0 [101(47)-20, 100(98)-2, 101(59)-24] and bt Shekhar Surve (RSPB) 3-0 [101-31, 101(78)-24, 102-82(52)], I.V. Rajiv (AP) bt Surve 3-0 [100-25, 100-44, 100-31], Brijesh Damani (WB) bt V. Subramaniam (Mah) 3-0 [101-31, 101(78)-24, 102-82(52)] bt Rajiv 3-0 [101(48*)-35, 104(56)-49, 100(71)-82], Subramaniam bt Anmoldeep 3-0 [101-26, 100(49, 51)-28, 101-39].
Group D: Arun Agrawal (Mah) bt D. Raj Kumar (Kar) 3-1 [100(49, 48)-2, 85-101, 101(56)-73(57), 100-2], Prem Prakash (TN) bt Subrat Das (Ori) 3-1 [101-44, 62-102, 101-96, 101(52)-62], Dhruv Sitwala (PSPB) bt M.S. Reddy (RSPB) 3-0 [102(52, 50)-30, 100-57, 100-63].
Group E: Manish Jain (WB) bt Rajat Khaneja (Pun) 3-0 [101-7, 101(59)-31, 102-20], Ashok Shandilya (RSPB) bt Farhad Tengra (Mah) 3-0 [100-82, 104(85)-12, 100-45], Sourav Kothari (WB) bt Ahsan-ul-Haque (Ori) 3-1 [87-101, 102(52, 49)-39, 100(44)-13, 100-56] and Rajat Khaneja (Pnb) 3-0 [100-69, 102(102)-0, 100 (43)-21].
Group F: Rupesh Shah (PSPB) by Sasha Sambi (Kar) 3-0 [101(62)-65, 101(95)-0, 102(54)-40], Shivam Arora (Bih) bt Siddharth Parikh (PSPB) 3-1 [3-102(94*), 102-65, 103-61, 104-15].
Group G: Devendra Joshi (PSPB) bt Mridul Das (Asm) 3-0 [100(95)-0, 102(86)-0, 101(63)-12], Shyam Jagtiani (WB) bt Rajesh Sharma (Del) 3-0 [101(75)-21, 101(82)-2, 100-62], Shakeel Ahmed (WB) bt Kunwardeep Singh (Pun) 3-0 [101(44)-49, 102-4, 100-52].
Group H: Rafat Habib (RSPB) bt Himanshu Jain (AP) 3-1 [100-63, 64-100(53), 100-28, 101-37], K. Venkatesham (RSPB) bt Parthiv Jhaveri (Guj) 3-2 [80-100, 100(57)-66, 101(76)-0, 80-101, 101-66(57)].
