Geet Sethi returned to his winning ways in taking the third leg of the second series and claiming the £3000 bonus for the best overall performance in the three legs. He turned the tables on Mike Russell and Ian Williamson, both of whom had beaten him in previous leg finals. The fact that Sethi has been beaten in India goes some way towards showing that the brilliant Indian is not invincible, but it is always going to be very hard for players to travel to India and beat him on his home ground. On the other hand Sethi has made the journey the other way round and has had some very fine games here - but he has yet to win a championship in England, though twice reaching the final of the U.K. Perhaps he will make it this year, but defending champion Robby Foldvari together with Mike Russell and Co. will certainly make life difficult for the world champion.
| Geet Sethi
| 4 | Ian Williamson
| 1 |
Williamson's win over Sethi in Bangalore had put him in line for the bonus but the Indian made no mistake this time.
| Norman Dagley
| w/o | Peter Gilchrist
| scr | ||
| bash Agrawal
| w/o | v Rex Williams
| scr | ||
| Mike Russell
| 4 | Michael Ferreira
| 1 |
Ferreira has been putting in more practice recently than for many years and must be a little disappointed that he does not seem to have recovered sufficient form to run the top men a little closer.
| Geet Sethi
| 5 | Norman Dagley
| 2 |
Sethi was quickly into his stride and with three centuries and a ninety, rapidly took a 4 - 0 lead. Dagley has never been one to give in easily and he did extremely well to take the next two games - one of them with a 151 run out. Sethi was not to be denied and ran out himself in the seventh for an emphatic 5 - 2 win.
| Mike Russell
| 5 | Subash Agrawal
| 0 |
Subash was never really in it though he made a 98 in the fourth and should perhaps have won that one.
| Geet Sethi
| 7 | Mike Russell
| 4 |
Sethi started well, breaks of 93, 60, and 54, giving him a 2 - 0 lead. Russell fought back strongly making breaks of 124 and 152 to level the scores. Further runs of 132, 81, and 69 took the Indian to a 4 - 2 lead at the interval.
On resumption of play Russell had just the start he needed, breaks of 150 and 112 bringing him level once again. Sethi came back with a 115 to take the 9th. With the balls running rather unkindly for him, Russell struggled, as Sethi made yet another century to go two in front. The Indian made no mistakes in the 11th for a fine 7 - 4 victory.
The sponsors were understandably upset at the absence of Rex Williams and Peter Gilchrist. Billiards enthusiasts are also disappointed that these two fine players did not participate. It would have been particularly interesting to see how Williams might have fared on his first trip to India. The surprising thing is that there has not been more absentees from tournaments played in India. From memory, I recall only David Seddon withdrawing from a tournament, and that was from the World Championship, played in Bombay last October, for which the Scottish Professional had qualified with a narrow victory over Hugh Nimmo. Seddon had arranged for time off work to travel for the originally advertised dates. When the dates were changed, his employees informed him that, yes, he could take time off to play, but that if he did there would be no job waiting when he returned. It is hardly surprising that Seddon withdrew.
In the case of Rex Williams, it seems that the change of dates of the latest Grand Slam clashed with an already arranged and firm commitment.
Peter Gilchrist's absence was in rather more tragi/comic circumstances and came about through a change in travelling arrangements. The Middlesbrough professional had a pre-arranged tournament commitment but, as the flight to India was timed to leave Heathrow at 23.00 hours on Wednesday 3rd, February, he reckoned that he would be able to play on the evening of the 2nd, rest a while, and then travel to London on the afternoon of the next day. The problems started to arise when Gilchrist was informed that the flight time had been changed to 06.50 on the 3rd. Not wishing to cancel his Tuesday evening engagement, Peter had to do rather a lot of rushing around. The ensuing confusion led to the situation - player and cue in London - passport in Middlesbrough! Peter Gilchrist did not find it at all funny. It easy to ask how on earth could he have done such a thing. We could also ask how many of us have not, when under pressure, done something equally inexplicable.
Returning to the question of dates, there has hardly been a tournament in India which has gone ahead on the originally advertised date, sometimes not in the originally advertised venue, and once not even in the originally advertised continent! To be fair, this has not always been the fault of the organisers. But not only in India. There has hardly been a tournament in England that has gone ahead on the originally advertised dates the latest victim being the Strachan U.K. which was advertised for Sheffield in February but will actually take place in Aldershot in April, (with the Final in Plymouth.) Yet again there are good enough reasons for the changes, although it was known as long ago as November that the U.K. Final was likely to be held in Plymouth as there was a good chance that it would be televised (filmed for later showing) by, "Sky."
But, incredible as it may seem to some people, there are those who would like to watch some professional play. The BQR fairly often get calls asking for information about professional play. We sometimes get calls from would-be spectators who have turned up in certain places at certain times and been not at all pleased to find there is nothing to spectate. They feel that they want to blame somebody so they ring up and blame me!
Plenty of people have all sorts of ideas as to how the professional game should be presented. Billiards enthusiasts can talk about what should be done until they are blue in the face but the first priority is to be able to announce firm dates and venues and until that comes about there will be more spectator dissatisfaction and more player withdrawal.