OVERSEAS NEWS
INDIA
Indian National Billiards Championship
Devendra Joshi made it fourth time lucky when he reversed the result of last year's final to beat Ashok Shandilya and add his name to the elite list of players who have won both the National billiards and snooker titles. Joshi had appeared in the billiards final on three previous occasions, losing to Subhash Agrawal in Calcutta (1991), Alok Kumar in Delhi (1999) and Shandilya in Bangalore (2000).
The Indian championships (both billiards and snooker) were sponsored by Khel.com, an Internet sports portal, and hosted by the Tamil Nadu Billiards and Snooker Association. Preliminary qualifying matches for the men's billiards commenced on 10th February with the main competition being played from 17th February at Wild West Parlour in Spencer Plaza, Chennai, on five specially erected tables.
Despite having lost to Shandilya last year, Joshi made a confident start to the four-hour final, consecutive breaks of 97 and 91 immediately putting the pressure on his opponent. By the half-way stage, his consistent scoring had opened up a 679-340 advantage which always looked to be more than Shandilya could make up. However, a break of 189 soon after the resumption gave the defending champion some hope, only for Joshi to reply with a fluent 144 to restore his advantage. A break of 180 by Joshi a little later, made sure of the title, and he finished in style with another run of 194, the highest of the championships. This passed the previous best of 191 which had been made by Shandilya in the semi-finals. Joshi collected prize money of Rs 11,000 (£163) which included Rs 1,000 for his high break. Manoj Kothari won the third place play-off against Alok Kumar by 855 (55, 165, 86, 51, 62) to 744 (174, 46, 70).
Junior (under-21) Billiards Championship
The Indian Junior Championship commenced of 7th February with 41 competitors. Matches were initially played as knock-out rounds, but at the semi-final stage the format changed to a round-robin group, the four survivors meeting each other to decide which would become the champion.
Pankaj Advani, from Bangalore, started as hot favourite to retain his title and he lived up to these expectations on 16th February when he completed all his matches with easy victories. His best performance came in the second round of this final group where Advani recorded two century breaks, the highest being 158, in a massive 1,140-622 win over Jaswinder Singh. In the last and deciding game of the round-robin group against Jai Ganesh he seemed to be in danger of losing his unbeaten record as he led by only 444-329 at the half-way stage. However, he picked up his game to dominate the second session with breaks of 94, 87, 53, 111, 81 and 51, winning 1,081-589 and taking his second consecutive Junior title.
Women's Billiards Championship
Anuja Thakur won her first women's billiards title on 10th February, beating Pooja Galundia of Rajasthan 3-2 in the final which was contested over the best-of-five 30 minute games. She had previously appeared in the final on her debut to the competition in 1997 when she lost to Farah Khan. Anuja, who was coached by the former World Champion Wilson Jones for three months in the early stages of her career, made a break of 34 in the deciding game of the final, which was the highest of the match. Uma Devi made the best break of the competition with a 54 in the earlier rounds.